Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh received in Hanoi on November 24 Irish Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton, who is on a working visit to Vietnam.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (R) received Irish Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton in Hanoi on November 24

The Vietnamese Deputy PM thanked the Irish Government and people for continuing to consider Vietnam as a prioritised partner in their cooperation development policy. He noted Irish-funded projects in Vietnam have been effectively implementing, contributing to the country’s socio-economic development. 

Minh proposed the Irish Government consider increasing scholarships for Vietnamese students, along with sharing experiences in education quality examination and cooperation between businesses and training facilities in human resources development.

He asked the Irish Ministry of Education and Skills to continue working with relevant agencies of the two countries to implement bilateral projects in many fields, such as hi-tech agriculture, aviation, wind power and information communications and technology. 

He expressed his wish to bolster cultural activities and boost the role of the Vietnamese community in Ireland and vice versa, thus contributing to promoting bilateral cooperation in various areas.

For his part, Minister Bruton expressed his impression on Vietnam’s socio-economic and international integration achievements in recent times as well as his pleasure at the development two countries’ friendship and multi-faceted cooperation. 

He informed the host of the Irish Government’s commitment of 7.5 million EUR a year in official development assistance in the 2017-2020 period in order to help Vietnam in poverty alleviation, human resources development, facilitation for the disabled and wartime bomb remediation.

Lauding the increase of cooperation programmes between the two countries’ universities and training facilities, he said that a number of new bilateral cooperation agreements were signed during his current Vietnam visit.

He told his host Ireland’s cooperation strategy with Vietnam for 2017-2020, in which the European country prioritises to strengthening cooperation in politics-diplomacy, trade-investment, education-training and people-to-people exchange with Vietnam.

Two-way trade between Vietnam and Ireland has been on the rise over the years, hitting 1.14 billion USD in 2016 and 1.1 billion USD in the first nine months of 2017.-VNA