A round of Vietnam-China border and territory negotiations is being held from August 12-14 in Hanoi.

The Vietnamese government delegation is headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Ho Xuan Son and the Chinese delegation by Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Dawei.

To date, the two sides have discussed ways to accelerate the completion and the signing before December this year of a protocol on border delimitation and marker planting, an agreement regarding border management regulations and an agreement on land border gate management between the two countries.

They also talked about working out an agreement on jointly exploiting and developing tourism at Ban Gioc waterfall in Cao Bang province and agreed to strengthen the coordination between Vietnam and China ’s local authorities in managing the borderline and maintaining security in the border region.

The two delegations pledged that they will seriously implement relevant bilateral accords and further discuss to seek long-term solutions to the East Sea issue.

Both sides also agreed to further accelerate negotiations regarding the delimitation of the sea area beyond the entrance to the Tonkin Gulf and discussed cooperation in marine environment protection and search and rescue operations at sea.

On August 13, the two heads signed a memorandum of understanding for the meeting and agreed to hold their nexts talk in China./.