Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) welcomes his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Hanoi on November 19, 2018, during the latter's s official visit to Vietnam (Photo: VNA) Moscow (VNA) – The brilliant Vietnam-Russia relations is a vivid illustration for a time-honoured friendship which has been unceasingly developed for years, an expert from Russian Academy of Sciences said.
In his writing posted on the RusVesna website on the threshold of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s visit to the European country, Evgeny Kobelev highlighted both countries’ achievements in economy and trade, with the signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, of which Russia is an important member.
A series of cooperation deals and projects are expected to be inked during the upcoming visit by PM Phuc to Russia, helping bring practical benefits to the two peoples, he said.
Last year, two-way trade reached more than 6 billion USD, up 16.35 percent from the previous year. Meanwhile, Russia was the 6th largest source of visitors to Vietnam, with 600,000 arrivals recorded in 2018.
Evgeny Kobelev believed that Vietnam is among the fastest growing countries in the world. The nation’s gross domestic product in 2018 grew more than 7 percent, opening up huge investment opportunities for foreign firms. Besides, with the development of the aviation and marintime transport, Vietnam will be an important link to connect with the Southeast Asian market, which is home to 600 million people.
With the increasing prestige in the regional and international arena, Vietnam has been a reliable destination to organise international events such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Meeting in 2017, World Economic Forum on ASEAN in 2018 and the recent DPRK-US Hanoi Summit.-VNA
