Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung left Hanoi on September 20 for the ninth ASEAN-China Expo (CAEXPO) and China-ASEAN Business-Investment Summit (CABIS) in Nanning, the capital of China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The PM is accompanied by Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Vu Duc Dam, Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang, Deputy Foreign Minister Ho Xuan Son, Deputy Finance Minister Vu Thi Mai, Vietnamese Ambassador to China Nguyen Van Tho and other senior officials.

On the occasion, Nhan Dan daily, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam, carried an editorial, saying the PM’s attendance at the two-day events, aims to strengthen the reliable political relations between the two countries’ high-ranking leaders.

It also affirms the Vietnamese Party and State’s policies of attaching great importance to developing the traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation with China under the motto of “friendly neighbourliness, comprehensive cooperation, long term stability and looking towards the future” and in the spirit of “good neighbour, good friend, good comrade and good partner.”

The PM’s attendance also clearly shows Vietnam’s viewpoint of stepping up the settlement of disputes and arising problems in the East Sea through peaceful negotiations, leaving no impacts on the relations between the two Parties and States, the editorial says.

China became Vietnam’s leading trade partner with two-way trade exceeding 30 billion USD in 2011.

In the first seven months of this year, two-way trade reached nearly 23 billion USD, representing a year-on-year increase of 20 percent.

During the period, China invested in 857 projects in Vietnam with a total registered capital of 4.5 billion USD, ranking 14 th out of 96 countries and territories investing in Vietnam .

It remains Vietnam ’s largest tourism market. In the first eight months of 2012, as many as 893,000 Chinese visitors came to Vietnam .

CAEXPO is held annually by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the 10 ASEAN countries and the ASEAN Secretariat.

Amongst to the countries participating at this year’ expo, Vietnam has the largest number of stands, with 200 covering an area of 3,500 sq. m.

Last year, Vietnamese business occupied 196 stands out of the 1,200 taken by ASEAN countries. Since then 120 of those businesses have signed contracts worth 950 million USD.-VNA