President meets with Russian Prime Minister Medvedev

According to the special correspondent of VNA, at 1:30 p.m. (Moscow time) on July 26, President Truong Tan Sang and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation arrived in Moscow, Russia, beginning an official visit to the Russian Federation, at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Truong Tan Sang meets with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. (Photo: Nguyen Khang/VNA)

The official welcoming ceremony for President Truong Tan Sang was solemnly held at Vnukovo-2 airport. Welcoming the President at the airport were Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bordanov, leaders and staff of the Vietnamese Embassy and many representatives of the Vietnamese community studying and working in Russia.

Immediately after the welcoming ceremony, at the Government Guest House, President Truong Tan Sang had a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Prime Minister Medvedev expressed his pleasure to welcome President Truong Tan Sang, highly appreciated the President's visit to the Russian Federation, and emphasized that the visit is of great significance, creating a strong driving force to elevate the relationship between the two countries to a new height.

At the meeting, President Truong Tan Sang and Prime Minister Medvedev agreed that over the past time, the strategic partnership between Vietnam and Russia has developed strongly, becoming more and more substantial and effective. Trusting political relations have been continuously strengthened, economic-trade, science-technology, security-defense, education-training, culture, tourism cooperation, etc. have continued to expand and have made great strides in quality. The two sides highly appreciated the strategic cooperation projects that Vietnam and Russia are implementing, emphasizing the importance of cooperation in the fields of oil and gas and nuclear power, with the two sides actively implementing the Ninh Thuan I Nuclear Power Plant Construction Project.

Prime Minister Medvedev affirmed that the Russian Government will continue to pay attention to directing the successful implementation of projects in the energy sector, creating all favorable conditions for oil and gas joint ventures of the two countries to implement signed contracts, as well as expanding oil and gas exploration and exploitation activities in Russia.

President Truong Tan Sang welcomed and affirmed that Vietnam will create all favorable conditions for Russian oil and gas companies and corporations to continue cooperating in oil and gas exploration and exploitation on Vietnam's continental shelf.

The two sides highly appreciated the positive developments in bilateral economic and trade relations. The bilateral turnover in 2012 is expected to reach 3 billion USD, however, this figure is still too modest compared to the potential and needs of the two countries. The two leaders agreed to promote the early negotiation and signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Vietnam and the Customs Union, considering this an extremely important and necessary measure to rapidly increase bilateral turnover, opening up great prospects for economic-trade, investment and service cooperation between the two countries in the coming time. In that spirit, the two sides are expected to announce the launch of negotiations for the Vietnam-Customs Union FTA on the occasion of the APEC Summit to be held in September this year in Vladivostok, the Russian Federation.

At the same time, the two sides also discussed and agreed to seek and promote new areas of cooperation, creating favorable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to participate in development projects in the Russian Far East region, as well as for Russian enterprises to invest and do business in Vietnam.

President Truong Tan Sang and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev highly appreciated the results of cooperation in the fields of defense and military technology between the two countries in recent times and agreed to continue to promote relations on the basis of trust and long-term development. The two sides affirmed that they will continue to strengthen cooperation in education-training, science-technology, culture, tourism and other fields.

President Truong Tan Sang and Prime Minister Medvedev also exchanged views on strengthening and expanding relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam and the United Russia Party, of which the Prime Minister is the Chairman. The two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation between the Communist Party of Vietnam and the United Russia Party, including the exchange of high-level delegations between the two Parties in the coming time.

On this occasion, President Truong Tan Sang expressed his gratitude and asked the Government of the Russian Federation to continue creating favorable conditions for the Vietnamese community to live, study and work legally in the Russian Federation.

President Truong Tan Sang thanked Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev for his kind sentiments and warm welcome. The meeting took place in a friendly, open and sincere atmosphere.

On the same day, President Truong Tan Sang met with staff of the Embassy, ​​the Vietnamese community and businesses in the Russian Federation; active members of the Russia-Vietnam Friendship Association, the Association of Former Russian Military Experts who helped Vietnam during the war, Russian students studying Vietnamese and a number of officials specializing in Vietnam.

The President listened to reports on the work of agencies, friendship organizations, individuals and units operating in the Russian Federation; and noted the opinions and recommendations of the delegates on their wishes to contribute more to strengthening the traditional relations between the two states and peoples.

President Truong Tan Sang expressed his delight and appreciation for the contributions in various fields of the embassy staff and representatives of the Vietnamese community in Russia. The President said that, upholding tradition, over the past time, thoroughly implementing the diplomatic policy of the 11th Party Congress, the embassy staff have played a good role as a focal point to promote diplomatic relations between domestic ministries, branches and agencies, organizations and localities of the Russian Federation.

Informing the main features of the country's socio-economic situation and the Party and State's policies on restructuring the economy and ensuring social security, the President affirmed that the efforts of outstanding organizations and individuals have contributed to the good performance of foreign affairs activities, supporting the Vietnamese working community in life and business; following the direction of the leaders of the Party and State of Vietnam; contributing to connecting the bridge of friendship; bringing the relationship between the two countries to a new height. The President advised representatives of the Vietnamese community living in the Russian Federation to strictly abide by the laws of the host country, strive to study, work, support each other, and turn to the roots of the Fatherland.

Emphasizing the role of foreign affairs in the cause of national construction and defense, the President suggested that, in the context of Vietnam and the Russian Federation building a "comprehensive strategic partnership"; the Vietnamese Embassy in the Russian Federation and friendship organizations need to preserve and promote the tradition of friendship and cooperation over the past 60 years; strengthen coordination; diversify exchange activities, friendly cooperation, trade promotion; build an image of the country and people of Vietnam as friendly and benevolent, contributing to fostering the valuable and long-standing traditional relationship between the two countries./.

According to (TTXVN)-LT