7:22 PM, 12/10/2008
PM’s tour to Australia: Open new stage of bilateral cooperation
VGP – PM Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, his spouse and entourage left Hà Nội on October 12 for a two-day official visit to Australia at the invitation of his counterpart Mr. Kevin Rudd.
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Photo: VGP
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The PM was accompanied by leaders of the Government Office, ministries of Transport, Construction, Foreign Affairs, Planning and Investment, Industry and Trade, Public Security, National Defense, Education and Training, Science and Technology, State Bank, Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and 60 leading enterprises.
PM Dũng will hold talks with his counterpart Kevin Rudd in Canberra to discuss measures to speed up trade, investment, urban infrastructure development, education, health, science and technology cooperation.
The Government chief also planned to visit Melbourne, the home of as many as 175,000 Vietnamese-born population.
Việt Nam and Australia established the diplomatic relationship in February 1973. Now, Australia is the 7th largest trade partner and ranks the fourth among export markets of Việt Nam. The two-way trade turnover steadily increased year on year, from US $32.3 million in 1990 to US $4.56 billion in 2007 and US $3.6 billion for the first seven months of 2008.
Australia has 174 projects in Việt Nam with the total investment capital of US $1.01 billion, ranking the 17 th out of 81 countries and territories investing in Việt Nam.
Australia pledged to grant Việt Nam US $100 million of ODA in 2008-09, an increase of 10% over the fiscal year of 2007-2008.
Education cooperation is one of the two countries’ key priorities. It is estimated that there have been 10,000 Vietnamese students and post-graduates taking courses in Australia.
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Việt Nam and Australia have inked many cooperation documents, including:
- Agreement on trade and economic cooperation (June 14, 1990);
- Agreement on mutual investment promotion and protection (March 5, 1991);
- Agreement on double taxation and income tax fraudulence avoidance (April 13, 1992); amended and supplemented on November 22, 1996;
- Additional inter-Government agreement on commodity supply (July 20, 1993);
- Agreement on aviation services (July 31, 1995);
- Consular Agreement (July 29, 2003);
And many memorandums of understanding on science and technology (September 1992), development (May 1993), intellectual property (September 1995), legal assistance (February 1997), environment (1997), Sports (1999), immigration (2001), social services (2002), anti-transnational crimes (March 2006), transport (March 2007), education and training (February 2008) and the legislative partnership (March 2008).
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Hải Minh
