HCM City (VNA) – A ceremony to mark the 26th anniversary of the National Day of the Russian Federation (June 12) was held in Ho Chi Minh City on June 9.

At the event, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Thanh Liem affirmed that Ho Chi Minh City will work to further friendship between Vietnam and Russia, contributing to each nation’s development as well as regional and global peace and cooperation.

Ho Chi Minh City and Russia have seen sound cooperation across the fields of trade, culture, education and tourism, Liem said.

He expressed his hope for the further development of the two sides’ economic ties.

Vietnam and Russia have been maintaining the inter-governmental mechanism on economic, trade and science-technology cooperation.

Two-way trade volume reached 2.2 billion USD in 2015 and 591 million USD in the first quarter of this year. Vietnam mainly exported phones, garments and agro-forestry-fishery products while mainly importing oil and petrol, steel, fertilizer, machinery and equipment from Russia.

Vietnamese companies have invested 2.93 billion USD in Russia, mostly in oil and gas and trade with some big projects like Rusvietpetro, Gazpromviet and the Hanoi Trade Centre in Moscow.

The two countries also frequently organise cultural activities to boost understanding and friendship between Vietnamese and Russian peoples. In terms of tourism, Russia is one of Vietnam’s 10 leading markets. Russia continues assisting Vietnam in training human resources with around 5,000 Vietnamese students studying in Russia.

They also step up cooperation in security, defence, science-technology and ties between their localities, with more than 100 cooperation agreements having been signed since 1991 in economy, trade, investment, gas and oil, nuclear power, training and education, culture, science and military engineering.-VNA
VNA