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| Vietnamese Ambassador to France Dinh Toan Thang (fourth from left), taking photos with representatives from localities and associations. (Source: Vietnamese Embassy in France) |
In France, through the connections made by the Vietnamese Embassy, the delegation organized a conference to connect Vietnamese and French localities and businesses.
Representatives from Vietnamese localities held discussions with representatives from several regions in France, including Grand Pointier, Val de Marne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Le Havre, and representatives from the Association of French Localities (CUF) and the Association of Vietnamese Entrepreneurs in France (ABVietFrance) at the conference.
The participants highly appreciated the positive results and great potential of cooperation between Vietnam and France over the years, especially following the recent state visit of Party General Secretary and President To Lam to France. During this visit, the two countries upgraded their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership, highlighting the high-level leadership's commitment to enhancing local cooperation between the two nations and introducing new approaches and visions for this cooperation.
The French delegates were informed about the specific cooperation potentials, strengths, and needs of the three Vietnamese provinces of Kon Tum, Ha Nam and Nghe An. They also provided recommendations for collaboration in areas such as science and technology development, high-tech agriculture, education and training, tourism, and cultural heritage preservation.
During their time in France, the delegation also had meetings with the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Directorate-General for Local Authorities and Civil Society (DCTCIV) under the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In the meeting with AFD, both parties discussed several ongoing AFD projects in Vietnam, explored future cooperation activities, and looked into combining other European Union funding sources, including the WARM Fund for water and resource management.
During the meeting with DCTCIV, the two sides agreed on measures to further strengthen the effectiveness of local partnership cooperation between the two countries, particularly in teaching the French language, human resource training and cultural exchange. The DCTCIV representative committed to supporting Vietnamese localities in deeper participation in some international local-level cooperation mechanisms led by France.
In Italy, the delegation, in collaboration with the Vietnamese Embassy in Italy and the Emilia-Romagna regional government, organized the Vietnam-Italy Local Partnership and Cooperation Conference in Bologna, attended by over 250 delegates. This was the largest inter-regional and inter-local conference ever held between the two countries in Italy.
The conference acknowledged that the bilateral cooperation between the two nations, in more than 50 years, has developed comprehensively and deeply across all fields, from politics, diplomacy, investment, and trade to culture, tourism and education. The deep and reliable partnership between the two countries serves as a crucial foundation for opening up cooperation opportunities at the local level.
Representatives of the three Vietnamese localities introduced and promoted the outstanding potentials and strengths of their provinces, investment attraction mechanisms and policies, and priority investment projects to localities, organizations, businesses and investors in Italy.
Through two discussion sessions on agriculture, food and beverages, industry, machinery and renewable energy, the conference received 30 statements from various representatives. Numerous networking and business meetings between localities and enterprises from both sides also took place on the sidelines of the conference.
During their visit to Bologna, the delegation met with the Vice President of Emilia-Romagna, a councilor of the Puglia region, the Deputy Mayor of Bologna, and representatives from the Italian Union of Commerce, Industry, Handicrafts and Agriculture (Unioncamere).
They also visited UNITEC Group, a company with 100 years of experience in designing and manufacturing systems for sorting and selecting fruits and vegetables to ensure product quality, as well as the Mechatronics Department of the University of Bologna, and had discussions with Delta del Po National Park on its expertise in processing and preserving eel and producing high-value traditional agricultural products. These visits were practical and opened up concrete cooperation opportunities between the parties./.