Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc held talks with his United Arab Emirates (UAE) counterpart Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on December 16 during which both sides agreed to further beef up bilateral partnership in all fields, especially trade, investment, financial-banking and labour cooperation.

The two sides concurred to increase the exchange of delegations at all levels while affirming their determination to raise two-way trade to a more impressive figure. They also vowed to continue close coordination and mutual support at international multilateral forums.

Deputy PM Phuc said that Vietnam takes the UAE as one of its top partners in the Middle East, suggesting the country encourage its businesses to invest more in Vietnam in such areas as energy, hospitability-tourism, finance-banking, and oil and gas.

He asked the UAE to help Vietnam build a labour training centre which aims to improve skills for Vietnamese workers who work in the Middle East market.

Vietnam will create all favourable conditions for UAE investors to explore business and investment opportunities in the country, he affirmed.

For his part, the UAE Deputy PM said his country attaches much importance to developing ties with Vietnam . He confirmed that he will direct relevant ministries and agencies to effectively realise all reached agreements and back joint projects in economy, finance-banking and labour in the future.

UAE businesses wish to invest in Vietnam’s agriculture, he said, encouraging Vietnamese producers to increase the export of agricultural products to the UAE.

Currently, the UAE is one of the leading economic partners of Vietnam in the Middle East and North Africa, with two-way trade hitting 4.46 billion USD in 2013, a rise of 80 percent over the previous year and 63 times higher that that of 2002.-VNA