Dhaka — President Trần Đại Quang and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina agreed to exert greater efforts to double the two countries’ two-way trade, which hit nearly US$900 million in 2017, during their talks in Dhaka yesterday. 

At the talks, which took place during the State visit to Bangladesh by President Trần Đại Quang from March 4-6, the leaders outlined major plans and specific measures to enhance bilateral relations. 
They said that the two countries should bring into full play their advantages to gain better co-operative results as both are potential markets with huge populations, young labour forces and dynamic business communities, and gateways to Southeast Asia and South Asia. 
PM Hasina stated she was impressed by Việt Nam’s development achievements, believing that President Quang’s visit on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties will open up more opportunities to improve relations. 
Both host and guest discussed possible co-operation in garment and textiles, leather shoes and leather products, food processing and pharmaceuticals on the basis of each country’s strengths, while pledging to speed up the opening of a direct air route between the two countries. 
The Bangladeshi leader committed to creating favourable conditions to help Vietnamese enterprises invest in her nation. 
She expressed her hope to learn from Việt Nam’s experience in agricultural production, affirming Bangladesh would continue importing Vietnamese rice. 
The two leaders agreed on strengthening collaboration in defence, security, education, tourism, culture and people-to-people diplomacy, and maintaining good ties at regional and international forums, including the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, ASEAN Region Forum and Asia-Europe Meeting. 
Discussing regional and global situations of mutual concern, they expressed their support for the promotion of peace, stability, security and aviation and maritime freedom and safety in the East Sea, as well as the settlement of disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and the formation of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea. 
President Quang took this occasion to invite PM Hasina to visit Việt Nam. 
After the talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of several co-operative documents: a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on aquaculture and husbandry co-operation between the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Bangladesh’s Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, an MoU on machinery manufacturing co-operation between Việt Nam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade and Bangladesh’s Ministry of Industries and an agreement on cultural exchange programmes between Việt Nam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Bangladesh’s Ministry of Culture. 
At the post-talks press conference, PM Hasina stressed that Việt Nam is one of Bangladesh’s closest neighbours, sharing the same aspirations of promoting peace and development, as well as similarities in terms of culture and traditional social values. 
She affirmed the Bangladeshi Government encourages enterprises of the two countries to seek business opportunities in each other’s markets. 
The Bangladeshi Government wishes to set up a dialogue partnership by sector with ASEAN, and join the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation forum, she said. 

Highlighting the development of bilateral ties, President Quang stressed that on the solid basis of the ties over the past 45 years, and great potentials of the two nations, the leaders agreed to seek measures to create breakthroughs, towards deepening bilateral relations. 
He said along with agreeing on key plans for the relations, many measures were outlined to promote co-operation across fields from politics-diplomacy; defence-security; economy-trade-investment; agriculture – breeding; to education-training; culture and tourism. 
The two sides will exchange high-level visits and tap bilateral co-operation mechanisms, as well as exploit possibilities of connections in defence-security, especially in defence industry, logistics and military health care, he noted. 
They also proposed ways to lift two-way trade to $2 billion in 2020 and considered the possibility of forming joint ventures, associations and production chains in agricultural production, he added. 
President Quang praised Bangladesh for its support for Việt Nam’s candidacy to the UN International Law Committee for the 2017-2021 tenure and to the Executive Council of the Universal Postal Union in 2017-2021. 
On the morning of the same day, President Quang paid a floral tribute to the National Martyrs’ Memorial in Savar, which commemorates anonymous martyrs that died for Bangladesh’s independence and freedom. 
The Vietnamese delegation also laid a wreath at the National Memorial Museum in Dhaka which commemorates Bangladesh’s Father of Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – the first president of the country.

The two sides also issued a joint statement, agreeing to work out ways to expand bilateral co-operation in all areas of mutual benefit. —VNS