Ambassador promotes cooperation between France's Saintes and Vietnamese localities
Vietnamese Ambassador to France Dinh Toan Thang recently paid a working visit to Saintes, a city in southwestern France, to promote cooperation between the city and Vietnamese localities and attended the Vietnamese Culture Day.
At a meeting with Saintes Mayor Bruno Drapron, the city's department of commerce and trade, representatives from Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and the local farmers’ association, Ambassador Dinh Toan Thang highlighted cooperation potentials between the two countries’ localities in various fields such as agriculture, sustainable tourism development, railway, seaport and technical infrastructure.
For his part, the mayor said that the city will study how to transfer skills and technology to Vietnamese partners and acquire experiences and technique from the Vietnamese side, as well as work together with the Vietnamese side to design strengthen cooperation between the localities of the two countries in the time ahead.
During his trip, the ambassador visited Chadignac vocational school which has cooperated with Vietnam’s Thang Long Gifted school in Da Lat (the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong) in French language teaching, the first step towards bigger projects.
The ambassador and his entourage also attended a display and show of Vietnamese ethnic minority costumes as part of the Vietnamese Cultural Day in Saintes which lasts from the Lunar New Year to June. The event is a chain of activities such as film screenings, seminars on Vietnam's tourism and economy, performances of ethnic musical instruments, fashion shows, displays of Vietnamese ethnic minority costumes, and cuisine introduction.
Ambassador Thang praised the coordination and support of Saintes city in organizing the Vietnamese Culture Day, a significant event to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and France and the 10th anniversary of the bilateral strategic partnership.
