Cuban Minister of Trade and Foreign Investment Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz spoke highly of cooperative relations between Cuba and Vietnam in recent years and said during Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to Cuba in March 2014, the two countries pledged to continue consolidating the traditional friendship ties and further expanding cooperation in economics, trade and investment.
In addition to signing the medium-term programme for promoting bilateral economic cooperation, the two countries identified specific targets and cooperative orientations for the next five years, helping to diversify economic and trade ties.
After reviewing the implementation results of agreements reached at the previous meetings, Minister Malmierca said despite recent fine development, bilateral trade relations have not matched with potential, therefore the Vietnamese and Cuban Governments have determined to lift economic and trade ties to a higher level in line with their fine political relations.
Malmierca added Vietnam is the second largest trade partner of Cuba in Asia and is the leading supplier of rice for Cuba, and expressed his sincere appreciation to Vietnam for its assistance in rice production.
He emphasised Cuba hopes to receive more Vietnamese investors in oil and gas, tourism, and industry.
Successful implementation of bilateral cooperation programmes will be very significant to mark the 55th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries in 2015, Malmierca said.
For his part, Vietnamese Minister of Construction Trinh Dinh Dung stressed on Vietnam’s consistent stance on supporting Cuban people’s revolutionary cause and highlighted Cuba’s valuable support for the nation’s past struggle for national liberation and current development process.
Dung congratulated Cuba’s socio-economic achievements and stated that Cuba’s new economic policies and measures, especially Foreign Investment Law and preferential investment policies in the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM) will lay a firm foundation for attracting foreign investment, contributing to realising socio-economic development goals.
At the meeting, the two sides reviewed results, analyzed obstacles and difficulties, pointed out measures, agreed key cooperative contents in the future, and built proper mechanisms to implement the previously-signed programme for promoting bilateral economic cooperation in medium term.
Source : VOV.VN