DPM receives President of Regional Council of Île-de-France

Deputy PM, FM Pham Binh Minh hosts a reception for President of the Regional Council of Île-de-France Valérie Pécresse, Ha Noi, July 16, 2019- Photo: VGP

At the meeting, the Deputy PM expressed his delight at the fruitful development in Viet Nam-France relations in all areas, especially high-level delegation exchanges, including Party General Secretary, State President Nguyen Phu Trong’s visit to France in March 2018 and French PM Philippe Edouard’s visit to Viet Nam in November 2018. 

He highly appraised the active development in the two nations’ economic and trade ties with the two-way trade value of €5 billion per year. 

Minh valued the two sides’ local-to-local and people-to-people exchanges, which have promoted the Viet Nam-France strategic partnership more intensively and practically. 

Especially, Regional Council of Île-de-France is the first locality in France to set up the partnership with Ha Noi, making a landmark in establishing cooperative ties between the two nations’ localities, he added. He welcomed the two localities to sign a memorandum of understanding on building Ha Noi French City Lab to support the two sides’ start-up enterprises in urban areas, environment, smart city and sustainable development.  

The same occasion, Deputy PM Minh expressed his hope that Valérie Pécresse will raise her voice to enhance the early approval of the EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement and EU-Viet Nam Investment Protection Agreement to bring benefits for both. 

For her side, Valérie Pécresse asserted that cooperation between Ha Noi and Regional Council of Île-de-France is the model for the two nations’ localities. 

Within the framework of her working visit to Ha Noi and attending the 30^th anniversary of the cooperative relations between the capital city of Ha Noi and Regional Council of Île-de-France, the French delegation visited the opening ceremony of the air quality monitoring station located at the French Embassy in Ha Noi, attended a seminar themed “Urban and creativity” and witnessed the signing ceremony of cooperative documents between the two localities. 

By Thuy Dung