Vietnamese, Russian leaders meet on cooperation

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov Igor Ivanovich met here on Monday for their meeting as co-chairs of the Vietnam-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission for Economic, Trade, Scientific and Technical Cooperation (CETSTC). Hai, who is also chairman of the Vietnam sub-committee, and Ivanovich as chairman of the Russian sub-committee under the CETSTC, met for the first time since the two sides' relations have been raised to the deputy ministerial level and in the context that they are celebrating the 10th anniversary of strategic partnership. The two leaders exchanged views on bilateral cooperation in recent years, and reached consensus on measures to further deepen their traditional friendship, strategic partnership, and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Russia. They highly evaluated the results of the 14th session of the Vietnam-Russia CETSTC, held in Moscow in September 2010, and the outcome of the bilateral cooperation in the past years. The two sides agreed to boost the two-way trade turnover to 5 billion U.S. dollars by 2015. To reach the set target, the two sides agreed to implement various measures, including starting negotiations and speeding up the process on the establishment of a Free Trade Area between Vietnam and the Custom Union (including Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan), and encouraging imports and exports to one another's markets. The two leaders pledged to continue encouraging and providing favorable conditions to both sides' investors to invest in the other country. They also expressed pleasure at the bilateral cooperation in oil and gas exploration and exploitation. The two leaders agreed that atomic power is one of the potential strategic cooperation areas between the two countries. In this spirit, the Vietnamese deputy prime minister highly evaluated the signing of an agreement, under which Russia would grant credit loan to Vietnam to build the Ninh Thuan No.1 nuclear power plant, seeing it a vivid symbol of their strategic partnership. They also agreed on construction of a nuclear science and technology center in Vietnam. The two leaders also agreed upon measures to further promote cooperation in the framework of the ASEAN-Russia and the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, in the context that Russia would host the APEC summit in 2012. The two leaders signed documents on the meeting and witnessed the signing of other documents on cooperation in various fields. The two sides agreed to hold the 15th session of the Commission in Moscow in 2012.