Singaporean Minister of State for Trade and Industry Lee Yi Shyan has affirmed that his country is ready to share its experiences with Vietnam.

Speaking to the Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) daily and other Vietnamese reporters during their second visit to Singapore in mid-July, Singaporean Minister Lee committed that his country would help Vietnam in human resource development through education and training cooperation programmes.

Singapore will also be ready to cooperate with Vietnam in other fields such as finance, information technology, trade and services, and infrastructure, he added.

The minister noted that the two countries have already cooperated in industry, realty, aviation, seaports, finance and banking.

At present, Singapore is the fifth largest investor in Vietnam . Two-way trade between the two countries rose from 2 billion USD in 1998 to 11 billion USD in 2008.

However, the minister said, there remains a large potential for bilateral trade and the Singaporean Government is interested in Vietnam ’s market of almost 90 million people.

He went on to say that the signing of the bilateral trade cooperation framework agreement on December 2005 has laid a firm foundation for the further development of trade ties.

The two countries’ cooperation in six fields - education and training, finance, information technology and telecommunications, investment, trade and service, and transports and communications - has recorded positive results over the past four years, he said./.