Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visited Guangdong province on October 13 as part of his current official visit to China.

In his meeting with Weng Yang, Secretary of the Party Committee of Guangdong province, Mr Trong highly valued the province’s important position and role in China’s development, saying that it is the leading locality and a successful symbol of China’s open-door reform process.

Along with the common development of Vietnam-China relations, Guangdong province has set up cooperative ties with Vietnamese localities.

Two-way trade between Vietnam and Guangdong has increased by 30 percent annually since 2008. Bilateral trade reached US$5.83 billion in 2010 and US$3.56 billion in the first six months of this year.
Many Guangdong businesses have invested in Vietnam, yet economic, trade and investment cooperation has not yet matched their potential.

Party leader Trong urged both sides to increase visit exchanges to promote mutual understanding and trust, as well as cooperation in economics, trade, investment, science and technology.

The Vietnamese leader said he hopes the province will pay attention to preserving Vietnamese historical and cultural relic sites in Guangdong, while increasing education, especially among youths, on the tradition of friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

For his part, Weng Yang said Guangdong and Vietnam should continue to work closely together to speed up the Shenzhen–Hai Phong economic, trade cooperation zone project, describing it as a symbolic cooperation area between the two localities.

If it performs well, it will contribute to attracting firms from Guangdong to cooperate and invest in Vietnam, he said.

Guangdong is restructuring its economy and will encourage high-tech businesses to invest in Vietnam, the provincial party secretary affirmed.

Later the day, Mr Trong visited the historic area of the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League in Guangzhou city, where the association, the precursor to the Vietnam Workers’ Party, was set up and issued policies and decisions for Vietnam’s revolution path 80 years ago.

He made a tour of the Panyu energy-saving science and technology area, and met with the staff of the Vietnamese Consulate General in Guangzhou.

VNA