Vietnamese, Cambodian parliaments promote cooperation

Hanoi (VNA) - Heng Samrin, Chairman of the Cambodian National Assembly, honorary
president and member of the standing board of the Central Committee of the Cambodian
People's Party (CPP), pays an official friendship to Vietnam from Jan. 15-19, at
the invitation of National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong.

The visit aims to reinforce the traditional friendship and comprehensive
cooperation between the Parties, States and people of the two neighbouring
countries.

In the recent past, Vietnam-Cambodia traditional friendly ties and comprehensive
cooperation have been enhanced under the motto of "good neighbourliness,
traditional friendship and comprehensive and long-lasting cooperation", which was
agreed upon by the two countries' leaders.

The two sides have exchanged numerous delegations at different levels.

The two countries have enjoyed significant progress in their economic, trade and
cultural cooperation. Two-way trade has steadily increased by an average 40
percent a year since the turn of the century, from 180 million USD in 2000 to
almost 1.2 billion USD in 2007. The figure for the first half of this year stood
at 900 million USD. They have set a target of posting 2 billion USD in two-way
trade turnover by 2010.

The two countries' cooperation in areas ripe with potential, such as education,
training, energy, electricity, health care, transport and communications have also
advanced markedly in recent years.

Cooperation has been heavily promoted between localities in the two countries,
particularly between their border provinces and twinned cities and provinces.

Relations between the two legislative agencies have been raised to new heights
through the signing of an agreement between the Vietnamese and Cambodian National
Assemblies during NA Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong's visit to Cambodia in April
2007.

The two sides signed a cooperation programme and pledged to meet annually to
define the concrete terms of this cooperation, focusing on a range of activities,
including the exchange of high-level NA delegations and delegations of NA agencies
and friendship parliamentarians' groups, the arranging of visits for researchers
to exchange experiences and the hosting of seminars and meetings for NA agencies
to exchange views.

They also acknowledged the importance of a regular exchange of information between
leaders of the Vietnamese NA Office and the Cambodian NA Secretariat, as well as
the exchange of documents and information regarding the activities of the two
national assemblies.-Enditem