Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong had a meeting with Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich in Minsk on November 27 during his official visit to Belarus on November 26-27.

PM M.Myasnikovich said he expected the visit will create a new impulse pushing for deeper traditional friendship and multi-faceted cooperation between the two countries.

He affirmed that Belarus held high regard for Vietnam’s role in the region and the world, stating that cementing the relations with Vietnam is among priorities in Belarus’s foreign policy designed for Asia-Pacific.

The Vietnamese Party leader and the Prime Minister shared their joy seeing the two countries’ traditional friendship and cooperation growing and their political ties unceasingly being strengthened.

They noted the triple rise in two-way trade recorded over the past five years remains below the two countries’ potential and expressed their belief that a free trade agreement between Vietnam and the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will pave the way for accelerating export activity. The agreement could be initialed by the end of 2014 and will be officially signed in early 2015.

PM M.Myasnikovich pledged to pay attention to facilitating Vietnam’s exports, especially farm products, seafood, apparel and footwear, to the Belarusian market while working towards establishing joint ventures producing such items right in Belarus.

Both leaders agreed to continue providing the best possible conditions for the two countries’ businesses to connect, firstly making it easier for the military-run Viettel group to invest in a telecommunication project in Belarus and other projects engaging in automobile and tractor manufacturing, coal exploitation and mining.

The PM said his country will consider increasing scholarships for Vietnamese students, especially in the fields of culture, arts and defence.

The leaders shared the view that cooperation in labour and vocational training is promising and needs to be accelerated in the coming time.

They emphasised the important role of local affiliation in consolidating the traditional friendship and opening up economic and trade cooperation opportunities.

At the end of the meeting, the host and guest witnessed the signing of several cooperative documents between the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee’s Commission for External Relations and the Belarusian President Office, the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Belarusian Ministry of Information, and the central province of Quang Ngai and Belarus’s Mogilov province.

Before the Belarus trip, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visited Russia.-VNA