During the visit, the twosides will exchange views on several regional and international issuesof common concern as well as sign a number of cooperative documents.
Vietnam and Namibia set up their diplomatic ties in 1990, basedon the fine traditional relationship first started in the 1970s betweenthe Communist Party of Vietnam and the South West Africa People’sOrganisation (SWAPO) – the current ruling party in Namibia . In thepast, the two sides always stood side by side in their struggles fornational independence.
The two countries haveregularly maintained the exchange of all-level delegations and havesigned a number of important agreements, including those on economic,cultural, scientific and technological cooperation, investmentencouragement and protection and trade.
However,bilateral cooperation is yet to meet the two countries’ expectations astwo-way trade reached only 1.3 million USD last year. Vietnam exportsgarments, coffee, wooden products to Namibia while importing steeland animal and vegetable oil from this African market.
At present, the two countries are implementing a tri-party seafoodcooperation project funded by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation(FAO), with three experts and two technicians of Vietnam working inNamibia.
Namibia has highly valued theVietnamese experts’ cooperation and suggested another tri-partycooperation project on rice growing in the country’s northeastern regionwith the support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA).
The two sides are also negotiating on a cooperation agreement between their agriculture ministries.
In the education-training field, Namibia wants to receive Vietnam’shelp to improve the education quality and expand training areas as wellas scholarships for Namibian agricultural students to learn in theSoutheast Asian country.-VNA