French Senate President Gérard Larcher (Sorce: quochoi.vn)
Hanoi (VNA) - French Senate President Gérard Larcher arrived in Hanoi on December8 morning, beginning an official visit to Vietnam at the invitation of NationalAssembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue.
The visit, from December 8-9, isthe first between the two countries’legislative leaders after the COVID-19 pandemic was brought under control.
Larcher is accompanied by Chairman of the Senate’sCommittee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and the Armed Forces Christian Cambon, Chairwomanof the Senate's Social Affairs Committee and President of the France-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians’ Group of the Senate Catherine Deroche, Special Advisor to the SenatePresident Patrick Dray, and Diplomatic Advisor to the Senate President Hubertde Canson, among others.
The visit is an important event towards the 50thfounding anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties and 10 years since theestablishment of the strategic partnership in 2023.
It is expected to contribute to consolidating anddeepening the strategic partnership between the two countries, as well as thefriendship and cooperation between the Vietnamese National Assembly and theFrench Parliament.
The Vietnam-France relationship is developingfruitfully across fields. The two countries have established an array ofcooperation mechanisms such as the strategic dialogue on national defence andsecurity between their foreign and defence ministries, the annual high-leveleconomic dialogue and the strategic dialogue on defence at the deputyministerial level.
France is Vietnam’s fifth largest trade partner in Europe, after Germany, theNetherlands, the UK and Italy, with two-way trade reaching 4.8 billion USD in2021, a slight decrease from the 4.81 billion USD of the previous year. As of theend of June 2022, the bilateral trade revenue had stood at 2.5 billion USD, ofwhich Vietnam’s imports from France were valued at 0.8 billion USD.
As ofSeptember 2019, France had ranked third among the European investors in Vietnam,after the Netherlands and the UK, and 16th among the 114 countries and territoriesinvesting in the Southeast Asian nation, with 549 valid projects worth some5.76 billion USD. Meanwhile, Vietnam has had nine projects in France with a totalinvestment of 3.04 million USD.
France is theleading European ODA provider of Vietnam, and the Southeast Asian nation rankssecond among the Asian recipients of the French assistance./.
