General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nong Duc Manh will pay an official visit to Cambodia from Dec. 17-19 as guest of King Norodom Sihamoni.

This is Manh’s second visit to the Kingdom following his initial trip in March 2005.

The visit is to promote the traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Cambodia as well as prepare Vietnam in its role as ASEAN Chair next year.

It also confirms the consistent external policies of the Vietnamese Party and State of attaching importance and wish to strengthen and develop traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries.

Vietnam and Cambodia share a 1,000km long border and use the Mekong River. The countries have an open foreign policy of diversifying and expanding their multilateral relations.

Over the past years, bilateral relations have developed well with an emphasis on “good neighbourliness, traditional friendship, comprehensive cooperation and long-term stability.” A regular exchange of high-level visits has been maintained to promote mutual trust and understanding. Relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam and the two Cambodian parties in the ruling coalition have also strengthened.

Vietnam and Cambodia have signed more than 60 legal documents on bilateral cooperation in most areas, and set up necessary coordination mechanisms in accordance with development demands of the two countries’ ties.

Economic, trade and investment ties between Vietnam and Cambodia have seen unceasing development on a par with their political ties. Two-way trade has increased by 40 percent annually, reaching 1.7 billion USD in 2008 and 945 million USD in the first nine months of this year.

Both countries have worked out measures to expand economic and trade cooperation, to raise bilateral trade to 2 billion USD in 2010. They have also opened and upgraded a number of economic zones and markets along the border.

Vietnam’s investment in Cambodia has increased considerably, with 50 projects licensed and valued at 640 million USD. These projects mainly focus on the exploration and exploitation of minerals, oil and gas, the construction of hydro-power electric plants and power transmission lines, rubber plantations and developing transport infrastructure.

Progress has been made in several joint projects such as health care, education-training and science-technology. Since 1995, Vietnam has trained thousands of Cambodian officials, university graduates and post-graduates in economics, culture and science-technology.

In 2010 Vietnam is expected to grant 550 scholarships to Cambodian students. In turn, Cambodia will also grant scholarships to Vietnamese officials studying the Khmer language.

Cambodia highly valued Vietnam’s humanitarian programmes to provide medical check-ups and restore the eyesight of visually-impaired people in border provinces.

The two countries have also worked closely in regional and international forums, thereby elevating their status globally./.