Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Le Hoang Quan hosted a reception for incoming Danish Ambassador to Vietnam Charlotte Laursen in the southern city on September 29, according to the Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper.
During the meeting, Quan urged the envoy to bolster bilateral ties between Ho Chi Minh City and Danish localities as well as Vietnam and Denmark at large.
The two sides lauded the all-around cooperation between the two countries, which has prospered through regular visits by high ranking delegations, particularly visits to Vietnam by Queen Margrethe II in 2009 and Prince Frederik in 2011, and State President Truong Tan Sang’s visit to Denmark in 2013.
For her part, the ambassador highlighted Denmark has continually strived to expand cooperative relations with Vietnam and vowed to speed up bilateral trade development during her tenure.
Trade turnover between the city and Denmark reached 200 million USD in 2014. So far, Denmark has invested in more than 40 projects in Ho Chi Minh City, valued at 60 million USD and ranking 24th among foreign investors in the city.
Since 1994, Denmark has offered 1.3 billion USD in official development assistance to Vietnam. Trade between the two nations has grown by 75 percent since 2009, with Vietnamese investment in Denmark doubling and Danish capital flows into Vietnam tripling.
Denmark is currently the third biggest EU exporter to Vietnam with over 130 companies doing business in the Southeast Asian country, primarily in wooden furniture, garments, clean energy, information and communications technology, electronics and software, maritime transport and logistics, and food.-VNA