Vietnam’s southern largest hub of Ho Chi Minh City and China should beef up cooperation in law-making and increase sharing of experiences related to activities of people-elected representatives.

Chairwoman of the HCM City People’s Council Pham Phuong Thao and Chairman of the Law Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) Hu Kangsheng reached consensus on this issue during their talks in the city on Sept. 13.

Hu and his entourage are visiting HCM City from Sept. 12-14 as part of their five-day trip to Vietnam , beginning three days ago.

Both host and guest expressed delight at recent development in Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership and hope that the two countries will soon achieve the cooperation targets, especially the two-way trade value of 25 billion USD set for 2010.

China and HCM City have many similar issues which require a lot of efforts to deal with, particularly those related to urban infrastructure and transport development and administrative reforms, Hu said.

The two sides need to increase the exchange of experiences and seek strengths for cooperation and mutual support, the Chinese official added.

Thao shared new information about activities of the HCM City People’s Council, especially the pilot implementation of the non-people’s council model at district and communal levels and the unification of communal/ward Party Secretary and People’s Committee Chairman titles.

She added that Ho Chi Minh City is one of the first 10 localities to apply these new models.

The two sides discussed civil servant examinations and public selections of leaders in State-owned agencies as well as put forth initiatives on the process of law-making, investigation and law adoption for each country’s parliament.

Both host and guest agreed that legislation is an important area that both sides should strengthen exchanges in the coming time, with focus on sharing localities’ own experiences and maintaining channels of information exchange among the two parliaments’ committees.

During its stay, the Chinese delegation visited several economic and cultural establishments in HCM City./.