Deputy PM Pham Gia Khiem visits Philippines
Manila (VNA) - Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem paid an official visit to the Philippines from February 21-22 at the invitation of Philippine Foreign Minister Alberto Gatmaitan Romulo.
The Vietnamese Deputy PM and his Philippine FM co-chaired the fifth meeting of the two countries’ Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation in Manila during the visit.
He also paid a courtesy visit to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, attended the banquet hosted by Deputy President Noli De Castro, and met with FM Alberto Gatmaitan Romulo.
While meeting with the host country’s leaders, Deputy PM Khiem expressed his pleasure at the Philippines’ socio-economic achievements over the past and expressed his wish that the Philippine people would obtain more achievements in national development.
At the fifth meeting of the Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation, the two sides showed determination to implement the Viet Nam-Philippines Plan of Action in the 2007-2010 period. They worked out measures to develop bilateral cooperation to match their potential.
The two sides expressed their joy at the high level of the two-way trade, reaching 1.4 billion USD in 2007, an increase of 23 percent over 2006. The figure was considered as a basis for them to push the turnover to 2 billion USD by 2010.
In terms of security and national defence, they agreed to continue exchanging experiences in navy and set up cooperation among military institutes to fight terrorism and trans-national crimes.
The two FMs agreed to hold the sixth meeting in Ha Noi with senior officials’ meeting scheduled for 2009 and the general assembly in 2010.
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