Haitian Prime Minister to visit Vietnam next week
At the invitation of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Prime Minister of the Republic of Haiti Laurent Salvador Lamothe will pay an official visit to Vietnam from December 16-18.
Prime Minister of the Republic of Haiti Laurent Salvador Lamothe.
(Source: article)
The Republic of Haiti is an island country in the Caribbean region, located on the western part of La Espanola Island, bordering the Dominican Republic in the east; has an area of 27,750 km2, a population of nearly 9,802,000 people, and its capital is Port-au-Prince. Haiti is among the least developed countries (LDC), with the lowest level of economic development and per capita income in Latin America, 78% of the population lives on less than 2 USD/day.
The economic structure of Haiti is 25% agriculture, 16% industry and 59% service. The main agricultural products include coffee, sugarcane, bananas, corn, potatoes, rice. Haiti has food processing, metallurgy, textile, and machine manufacturing industries. The country's exports reached 721.3 million USD in 2011, of which 83% of goods were exported to the US with the main items being: textiles, cocoa, mango, coffee...
In the field of foreign affairs, Haiti is a member of the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Association of Caribbean States (AEC) and other organizations such as CELAC, ILO, WTO... In December 2009, Haiti joined the Economic Partnership Agreement between 14 Caribbean countries and the European Union.
Vietnam established diplomatic relations with Haiti on September 26, 1997. After the 7.0 Richter scale earthquake on January 12, 2010 in Haiti (killing over 300,000 people, leaving 3 million homeless...), former President Nguyen Minh Triet and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem sent condolences to the Haitian leaders; the Vietnamese government, through the Vietnam Red Cross, provided Haiti with 150,000 USD in aid to overcome the consequences.
Due to the political, security and economic conditions of Haiti and the great geographical distance between the two countries, bilateral relations have not developed commensurate with the potential of the two countries. Two-way trade turnover in 2011 reached 40 million USD (compared to 11 million USD in 2010); of which Vietnam exported 15 million USD and imported 25 million USD; in the first six months of 2012 it reached about 19 million USD.
Vietnam imports textile raw materials, footwear, paper pulp, iron and steel scrap, animal feed and raw materials for animal feed processing; Vietnam exports textiles, rattan, bamboo, wood and wooden products, instant noodles, chemicals, plastic products and other goods.
In 2010, Viettel Group and Haiti Telecommunications Corporation (Teleco SA) established the NATCOM SA telecommunications joint venture with a total investment of 100 million USD (Viettel contributed 60%) and has been operating since September 7, 2011. As of September this year, NATCOM has accounted for 20% of Haiti's mobile network market. There are currently over 220 Vietnamese people living and working in Haiti.
The official visit to Vietnam by Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Salvador Lamothe aims to discuss measures to promote the friendly and cooperative relations between Vietnam and Haiti, especially in the fields of economics, trade, investment, agriculture, telecommunications, construction, health care, etc.; and to discuss international and regional issues of mutual concern./.
According to (TTXVN) - LT
