Vitebsk region and Vietnamese provinces plan to cooperate in oil refining and machine tool building

July 30, Vitebsk /Sergey Kochetov - BELTA/. Promising areas of cooperation between the Vitebsk region and the provinces of Vietnam may include oil refining, machine tool manufacturing, and light industry. This was announced today to journalists by Oleg Matskevich, Deputy Chairman of the Regional Executive Committee, following a working meeting with Dang Huu Chan, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Vietnam to Belarus, BELTA correspondent reports.

The interest of Vietnamese partners in cooperation in oil refining is driven by the implementation of projects for the construction of large oil refining complexes in several provinces of this Southeast Asian country. The Vitebsk region can assist in training specialists of various qualifications for this industry, and is also ready to consider proposals for technological and production cooperation, Oleg Matskevich noted. In addition, during the meeting, the Vietnamese diplomat expressed interest in cooperation with Belarusian partners in the field of agricultural machinery manufacturing.

Another area of promising cooperation between the Vitebsk region and the provinces of Vietnam could be partnerships between higher education institutions and educational exchanges. At the same time, there is significant potential for interaction in the food and meat-dairy industries; some enterprises in the region have already supplied trial batches of products to Vietnam and, after completing the relevant certification procedures, are ready to expand their presence in the Southeast Asian market.

Recently, contacts between the Vitebsk region and the regions of Vietnam have shown positive dynamics, Oleg Matskevich noted. In May 2011, a delegation from the Vitebsk region visited this country. Following the visit, an agreement on trade and economic cooperation between the region and Hai Phong province was signed, as well as a memorandum of cooperation in the field of tourism with Binh Thuan province.

During the meeting between the leadership of the Regional Executive Committee and the Ambassador of Vietnam, the progress of implementing agreements and the development of cooperation between enterprises of the Belarusian and Vietnamese regions were analyzed.

During the two-day trip, the Ambassador of Vietnam will visit the "Vitebsk" free economic zone and tour the FEZ resident enterprises, and will get acquainted with the tourist potential of Vitebsk and its attractions.-0-