Vietnamese Ambassador to Belgium Vuong Thua Phong affirmed that he will work to further foster the relations between Vietnam and Belgium when presenting his credentials to King Philippe on February 3.

King Philippe spoke of fine developments of the bilateral relations across a realm of areas, expressing hope that stronger cooperation between the two countries will be facilitated during Ambassador Phong’s working tenure.

Vietnam-Belgium relations have been growing remarkably over the past 40 years.

The ties were elevated following Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to the European country in October 2014.

The two countries’ two-way trade expanded 70 percent between 2003 and 2011.

Belgium is Vietnam’s sixth largest trade partner in the EU with two-way trade hitting 2 billion EUR (2.29 billion USD) a year. It has invested 281.34 million USD in 53 projects in Vietnam.

In 2014, trade between the two countries experienced a year-on-year growth of 27.4 percent to reach over 2.3 billion USD.-VNA