NA Chairwoman leaves Hanoi for Russia, Belarus visits hinh anh 1Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan leaves Hanoi on December 8 for official visits to Russia and Belarus. (Photo: VNA)
 
Hanoi (VNA) – Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and a high-ranking delegation of the Vietnamese NA left Hanoi on December 8 for official visits to Russia and Belarus.

Her visit to Russia is made from December 8 – 11 at the invitation of Chairwoman of the Federation Council V. Matviyenko and Chairman of the State Duma of Russia V. Volodin.

She will visit Belarus from December 12 – 14 at the invitation of Chairman of the Council of the National Assembly Mikhail Myasnikovich and Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly Vladimir Andreichenko.

She is being accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue and Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Uong Chu Luu, among other senior officials.

They are Ngan’s first visits to Russia and Belarus as a NA Chairwoman, which are expected to further bolster the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Russia, and traditional friendship and multi-faceted relations with Belarus and enhance cooperation between the Vietnamese NA and the Russian and Belarusian legislatures.

Vietnam and Russia set up diplomatic ties in 1950. The two countries established a strategic partnership in 2001 and upgraded it to the level of comprehensive strategic partnership in 2012.

The two sides have maintained a number of cooperation and dialogue mechanisms, such as the annual strategic dialogue on diplomacy, defence and security at deputy foreign ministerial level and the strategic defence dialogue at deputy ministerial level.

The Vietnam-Russia trade mounted to 4.5 billion USD in 2018, a 28.5-percent increase from a year earlier. The bilateral trade reached 3.4 billion USD in the first nine months of this year. Vietnam mainly exported phones, clothing, agricultural products and seafood to Russia while importing oil and petroleum, steel, fertiliser and machinery.

As of February 2019, Vietnam had been home to 127 FDI projects run by Russia, worth more than 950 million USD, mostly in mining, oil and gas, manufacturing and processing.

Vietnam had invested nearly 3 billion USD in projects in Russia, such as joint venture Rusvietpetro and TH Group’s hi-tech dairy farming project.
VNA