Khiem, who doubles as Minister of Foreign Affairs, made the commitment at talks and meetings with German leaders and business executives during his official visit to Germany from Sept. 13-15.

While in Germany , Khiem paid a courtesy call on President Christian Wulff, held talks with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle, and received the Secretary of State of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Governor of the State of Hessen .

The deputy PM visited the States of Hessen and Bavaria, attended celebrations of the 65th anniversary of Vietnam’s National Day and the 35th anniversary of Vietnam-Germany diplomatic relations in Berlin and Frankfurt. He participated in a seminar designed to promote German investment flow into energy and infrastructure projects in Vietnam and met with a number of German leading economic groups.

Khiem inaugurated the new headquarter of the Vietnamese Consulate General in Frankfurt and met with overseas Vietnamese in the country.

During the meetings, German leaders praised the achievements Vietnam has reaped during the renewal process, especially its deeper international integration and high GDP growth in recent years despite the adverse impacts of the global economic crisis.

According to the officials, Vietnam has become an emerging and important economy in the region and gained an increasing position in the international arena.

They applauded Khiem’s visit to Germany, which took place at a time when the two countries are celebrating 35 years of their diplomatic ties and jointly organising “Vietnamese Year in Germany ” and “German Year in Vietnam ” under the sponsorship of their heads of state.

Both sides highly valued the strong development of the bilateral friendship and multi-faceted cooperation, particularly since Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited Germany in March 2008. The two sides agreed to increase the exchange of visits in 2011, including those by top leaders, to create a momentum for cooperative relations in all fields.

Host and guest noted with pleasure the rapid and steady growth of economic, trade and investment ties. Germany has emerged as the biggest trade partner of Vietnam in the European Union (EU), with two-way trade value reaching almost 4 billion USD last year.

Close to 200 German enterprises and many of them are giant firms such as Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Metro Cash & Carry, Deutsche Telekom, BMW, Mercedes and Audi, have operated in Vietnam.

Leaders of the German government and business community thanked the Vietnamese government for its support for German investors to carry out a number of energy and infrastructure projects, typically the metro route No. 2 in Ho Chi Minh City.

They expressed hope that German enterprises would be able to continue engaging in key infrastructure projects in the form of public-private partnership in Vietnam in the years to come.

Khiem thanked Germany for its provision of official development assistance (ODA), especially its decision to increase ODA for Vietnam in recent years although the European nation is still facing economic difficulties.

He stressed that the German ODA capital has been effectively used in prioritised areas such as hunger eradication, poverty reduction, healthcare, environmental protection, human resources development and vocational training, thereby contributing remarkably to Vietnam’s socio-economic development.

The two sides agreed that education and training is a prioritised field of cooperation and it should be stepped up in the coming time. The German officials applauded the establishment of Vietnam-Germany University in Ho Chi Minh City, describing it as an important project between the two nations.

The German side also thanked Vietnam for its backing for the opening of an international German high school in HCM City . The two sides agreed to work together to expand the pilot teaching of German in secondary schools and carry out a German-funded project to build a large-scale vocational training centre in the North of Vietnam.

The officials agreed to boost bilateral cooperation in international forums, especially in the United Nations, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the EU. Germany pledged to support Vietnam’s efforts to enhance comprehensive cooperation with the EU, and in return, Vietnam vowed to back Germany’s bid to beef up cooperative relations with the ASEAN./.