Politics

Vietnam-Cuba Inter-Governmental Committee meets

The Vietnam-Cuba Inter-Governmental Committee for Economic, Commercial, Scientific and Technological Cooperation convened its 32nd meeting in Havana, Cuba on October 13, seeking ways to raise bilateral economic ties on a par with political relations.
The Vietnam-CubaInter-Governmental Committee for Economic, Commercial, Scientific andTechnological Cooperation convened its 32nd meeting in Havana, Cuba onOctober 13, seeking ways to raise bilateral economic ties on a par withpolitical relations.

Cuban Minister of Trade and ForeignInvestment Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz said during Prime Minister Nguyen TanDung’s visit to Cuba in March 2014, the two countries pledged to furthertheir traditional friendship as well as cooperation in economics, tradeand investment. 

To realise the pledge, both sides signed themedium-term economic cooperation programme along with identifyingspecific targets and cooperative orientations for the next five years,in the view of diversifying economic and trade ties.

Reviewing the implementation results of agreements reached at theprevious meetings, Minister Malmierca said bilateral trade has yet tomatch with potential though progress made recently, therefore theVietnamese and Cuban Governments have determined to lift the ties to ahigher level in line with their fine political relations.

Vietnam is the second largest trade partner of Cuba in Asia and is theleading supplier of rice for Cuba, the minister said, expressing hopesto receive more Vietnamese investors in oil and gas, tourism, andindustry. 

At the meeting, Vietnamese Minister of ConstructionTrinh Dinh Dung reiterated Vietnam’s consistent stance on supportingCuban people’s revolutionary cause and highlighted Cuba’s valuablesupport for the nation’s past struggle for national liberation andcurrent development process. 

He stated that Cuba’s new economicpolicies and measures, especially Foreign Investment Law andpreferential investment policies in the Mariel Special Development Zone(ZEDM) will lay a firm foundation for attracting foreign investment torealize socio-economic development goals.

The two sidesreviewed results, discussed obstacles, difficulties and measures to betaken, and agreed key cooperative contents in the future as well asmechanisms for carrying out the signed mid-term economic cooperationprogramme.-VNA

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