Hanoi (VNA) – The State visit to Vietnam from November 27-30 by President of the Republic of PolandAndrzej Duda is expected to help enhance friendship and cooperation betweenthe two countries, especially in trade, investment, national defence anddevelopment cooperation.

The Vietnam-Poland relationship has made progresses in recent years, asreflected through regular exchanges of delegations.

Poland has placed importance on Vietnam’s role and position in its foreignpolicy towards Asia, considering Vietnam a leading partner in Southeast Asia.

Poland is Vietnam’s top trade partner in Central Eastern Europe, while Vietnamis Poland’s seventh largest trade partner outside the EU.

Vietnam mainly exports garments-textiles, seafood, rice, coffee, pepper,confectionary, farm produce, phones and electronic products to Poland, whileimporting powdered milk, medicine, fruit and equipment for the coal andshipbuilding sectors from the country.

Two-way trade hit 790 million USD in 2016, of which Vietnam’s export revenue toPoland was 598 million USD. In the first nine months of this year, bilateraltrade value reached 730 million USD.

As of October 2017, Poland had 14 investment projects in Vietnam, with totalcapital of 182.88 million USD. Between 2014-2017, Poland’s investment inVietnam doubled, mainly in real estate, processing and services.

Vietnam has invested in four projects in Poland worth about 5.1 million USD,specialising in services and food industry.

Poland has committed to supplying a preferential credit package worth 250million EUR (296.3 million USD) to Vietnam, as part of a financial cooperationframework agreement between the two countries.

Bilateral partnerships in national defence, education-training andculture-tourism have also been maintained.

Between 1960 and 1990, Poland trained more than 4,000 Vietnamese students andscientists, and over 3,500 labourers, mostly in the coal and shipbuildingsectors. Nowadays, the number of Vietnamese students in Poland is increasing.

Hanoi-based Vietnam-Poland High School, which was built in 2008 with 150,000EUR in official development assistance provided by Poland, is the result of thefriendship between the two countries.

Poland also helped Vietnam restore relic sites in the ancient imperial capitalof Hue, central Thua Thien-Hue province, Cham towers in central Quang Namprovince and Cu Chi tunnels in Ho Chi Minh City.

Many frameworks agreement between Vietnam and Poland have been signed, focusingon cooperation in culture-science, trade protection facilitation, doubletaxation avoidance, citizen transfer and agricultural collaboration.

Currently, about 40,000 Vietnamese are living in Poland, contributing to tiesbetween the two countries. -VNA