The best way to lift the US-Vietnam relations is to increase the economic exchange between the two countries, the US ’s newly-assigned General Consul in Ho Chi Minh City has said.

In his interview to the Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper on Nov. 5, Le Thanh An, the first Vietnamese American to be appointed as US General Consul to a big city like HCM City, said one of his priorities during his three-year term in Vietnam is to boost the US’s trade and investment in Vietnam. He added that these fields are expected to help increase jobs in the US as well as in Vietnam .

More US products brought to Vietnam will offer more choices for Vietnamese consumers, and the involvement of businesses in the trading, distributing and selling these products will help create jobs in both countries, An said.

He pledged to do his best to prove the worth of increased trade relations, and said he believed that US investors, including overseas Vietnamese businesses, are a big resource that Vietnam would need in order to transform from a low-income country into an industrialised one, the target the country hopes to complete by 2020.

The new General Consul expressed his wish to create more opportunities for excellent Vietnamese students to study in the US and the return to Vietnam for work, contributing to the development of their homeland.

He also wished to improve the diplomatic ties between the two countries. For his personal targets, An said he wants to encourage charitable activities and assistance to orphanages, hospitals and schools.

The new General Consul said he felt honoured and lucky at the appointment, which allows him to return to the city where he was born and lived for ten years of his childhood.

An said though he has only a few childhood memories of Vietnam , he still feel the attraction of Vietnam , its culture and people, particularly the ‘cai luong’ (renovated theatre) performance, which he used to see with his parents when small./.