Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly’s Committee for External Affairs Nguyen Van Son and his entourage concluded a two-day working visit to the Philippines on Jan. 16.

While in the Philippines , the Vietnamese delegation was received by Deputy Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives Maria Amelita Vilarosa and held working sessions with Chairpersons of the Committees for Foreign Affairs, and Interparliamentary Relations and Diplomacy and the Secretary General of the Philippine House of Representatives.

Son, who is also Head of the Organising Board of the 31 st ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) General Assembly , conveyed NA Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong’s invitation to the Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives to attend the 31 st AIPA General Assembly in Vietnam .

He also informed his host of the 31 st AIPA General Assembly’s agenda and the action programme of Vietnam as Chair of ASEAN in 2010 and exchanged view on the election of the AIPA Secretary General under AIPA’s regulations.

The two sides exchanged opinions on enhancing the relations between the two legislative bodies, especially the exchange of legislative experiences.

They laid stress on consolidating and accelerating the friendly neighbouring relationship between the two countries in all fields, including fisheries, thus contributing to building an ASEAN of peace, cooperation development and prosperity.

The Philippine NA leaders said they would send a delegation to the 31 st AIPA General Assembly, support and closely work with Vietnam to make the event a success in an effort to strengthen AIPA’s role as the largest interparliamentary organisation in the region.

The host expressed their wish to enhance cooperative ties with the Vietnamese NA and proposed to jointly set up bilateral friendship parliamentarian group.

Having noted the similarities between the two countries, especially in culture, they wished to further boost the multi-faceted bilateral cooperation in economics, trade, education and tourism.

They also agreed with Vietnam to soon introduce a new secretary general for AIPA and welcomed Vietnam ’s proposal to organise official annual meetings between presidents, leaders and secretariats of AIPA and ASEAN./.