Vietnamese president pays state visit to Brunei

President of Vietnam Tran Dai Quang and his spouse arrived here Friday afternoon for a state visit to Brunei from Aug. 26 to 28 at the invitation of Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

Tran Dai Quang was received by Hj Suyoi, Brunei's minister of Education and other officials at the Brunei International Airport.

He is expected to be welcomed by the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah at the Istana Nurul Iman palace Saturday for a meeting to discuss bilateral ties and latest developments in the region, and later a state banquet dinner in the evening.

Vietnam and Brunei set up diplomatic ties in 1992 and will celebrate their 25th anniversary next year.

Tran's first visit to the sultanate aims at promoting cooperation in many areas and he will host a business forum to forge connection between entrepreneurs of both countries, Nguyen Truong Giang, Vietnam's ambassador to Brunei, said here early this month.

"The president's delegation will comprise a lot of business people and we want to create connections between the two business communities, particularly in oil and gas," he said.

According to Vietnamese media reports, bilateral economic, trade and investment co-operation has made strides with two-way trade jumping from 24.2 million U.S. dollars in 2010 to 73.7 million dollars in 2015.Vietnam mainly exports seafood and rice to Brunei while importing chemicals from the sultanate. Enditem