At the meeting, Victor Semenovich, who is head of thefriendship group, praised the continuous development of the Vietnam-Russia comprehensivestrategic partnership, with frequent exchanges of high-level delegations takingplace across Party, State, parliament, and government channels.
Semenovich said he is willing to push the issue of legaldocuments to help realise agreements signed within the framework of the EurasianEconomic Union-Vietnam free trade agreement, towards raising Vietnam-Russiatrade to 10 billion USD in 2020, as targeted by the two leaders.
Agreeing with the Russian side on the two countries’cooperation potential, Ambassador Manh noted that bilateral trade hit 4.57billion USD last year, up 28.6 percent from 2017.
Vietnam is now ranked first among Russia’s trade partnersfrom the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and sixth among thosefrom the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) bloc.
Regarding the promotion of collaboration between Vietnameseand Russian localities, Manh said the embassy has worked to sustain and developthe ties between several Vietnamese cities and their Russian partners such as Hanoiand Moscow, Ho Chi Minh City and St Petersburg, Da Nang and Yaroslav, and BaRia-Vung Tau province and Nenetsky.
The embassy also helped establish cooperative ties betweenNghe An province and Ulyanovsk, as well as between Ha Tinh province and Tula,he added.
The diplomat also suggested the Russian side create favourableconditions for Vietnamese expatriates.
Earlier, in late February, the ambassador held a similarmeeting with the Russia-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians’ Group at the StateDuma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. –VNA