Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s visit to Germany and his attendance at the G20 Summit from July 5-8 is expected to showcase Viet Nam as a dynamic country, and a trusted and responsible member of the international community.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his spouse (Source: VNA)

Viet Nam and Germany established diplomatic ties on September 23, 1975. Since then, the bilateral friendship and cooperation have developed extensively.

Mutual trust and understanding have been strengthened through the regular exchange of high-level delegations and cooperative mechanisms.  During the Viet Nam visit by Chancellor Angela Merkel in October 2011, the two Government leaders signed a joint statement on establishing a strategic partnership which put forward targets and measures to intensify bilateral collaboration.

Germany is Viet Nam’s largest trade partner in Europe with 2-way trade reaching 8.78 billion USD last year and 3.8 billion USD in the first five months of 2017. Viet Nam mainly ships mobile phones and computer components, garment and textile, footwear, coffee, agricultural and aquatic products to Germany and imports machinery, spare parts, automobiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and milk products from the European nation.

In terms of investment, Germany considers Viet Nam a promising market with rapid development in Asia. As of April 20, the European country had 285 projects worth 1.41 billion USD in the country, ranking 5^th in the European Union and 20^th among 116 nations and territories investing in Viet Nam. There are about 300 German enterprises operating in Viet Nam.

Meanwhile, Viet Nam has 30 investment projects in Germany with total capital of 124.8 million USD, focusing on finance-banking, automobiles, real estate, services and informatics.

Since 1990, Germany has provided some 2 billion USD for Official Development Assistance projects in Viet Nam through technical and financial cooperation. The German Government pledged aid worth more than 600 million EUR (682.1 million USD) for projects in energy, vocational training and environment in the Southeast Asian nation.

Germany is one of the most important markets for the Vietnamese tourism sector. In the first 3 months of this year, 61,923 Germans visited Viet Nam, up 13.2 percent year-on-year. From July 1, Viet Nam piloted visa waivers for German citizens staying for 15 days or less.

German is being taught as the 2^nd foreign language in 13 schools nationwide thanks to a German Foreign Ministry initiative.

There are currently 176,000 Vietnamese people living in Germany.  Several States have also piloted the teaching of the Vietnamese language in high schools, such as Brandenburg, Berlin, Sachsen and Sachsen Anhalt.

In addition, the 2 countries have signed agreements to create a legal foundation for economic cooperation, including an agreement on double taxation avoidance and another on investment protection and encouragement.

Themed 'Shaping an interconnected world', the G20 Summit will be held on July 7-8 in Hamburg. As the host of the APEC 2017, Viet Nam was invited to conferences and meetings within the G20 framework this year.

(Source: VNA)