The Vietnamese Embassy in the US held a ceremony in Washington on May 7 to present the Friendship Order to Andre Sauvageot, a war veteran, for his contributions to the normalisation and development of Vietnam-US relations.

Vietnam's Vice Ambassador to the US Nguyen Huy Dung sticks the Friendship Order to Andre Sauvageot. Photo VOV

Andre, who is now working as director in charge of Vietnam-US business development under the Maventus Consulting Group, expressed his honour to receive the Vietnamese State’s award and affirmed his support for the revolutionary career of Vietnamese people.

As a member of the Vietnam-US Trade Council, he pledged to raise his voice to urge the US Congress to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement – to which Vietnam and the US are members, in a bid to promote the bilateral trade relations.

He is expected to accompany US President Barack Obama to pay official visit to Vietnam in late May.

Sauvageot used to be an official at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). From 1964 to 1973, he fought in many battlefields in the southern part of Vietnam.

Fluent in Vietnamese, he interpreted for many meetings between the two sides during and after the war.

Sauvageot considered Vietnam his second hometown. His spouse is Vietnamese and he has been living in the Southeast Asian country for a long time. During his term of office in Hanoi from 1992 to 2003 as the chief representative of General Electrics, he persuaded the US Government to remove the embargo on Vietnam and after that a number of US companies opened their first branches in Vietnam.

Thanks to his large social acquaintances and rich business experience, he has helped a lot of Vietnamese firms to grasp business opportunities and gain benefits from cooperation with US partners.

VNA