Germany Ambassador to Vietnam Rolf Schulze made the remarks during an interview with the Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper after he spent a sleepless night to follow his homeland’s election results on TV. 

According to initial results reported on Sept. 28, Chancellor Angela Merkels’ Christian Democrat Union (CDU) captured 33.5 percent of votes and its new partner, the Free Democrat Party (FDP) took 14.5 percent. Their rival, the Social Democrat Party (SPD), won 23.5 percent. The combined 48 percent for the CDU-FDP coalition allowed them to form a new governmental alliance. 

The diplomat said that no country in the region receives such a lot of high-level delegations from Germany as Vietnam. In the first half of the year alone, some 20 political and economic delegations from Germany visited Vietnam. 

The Ambassador also revealed that 2010, the year to celebrate the 35^th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral ties, will witness top-level visits by the two countries’ leaders. He added that the year will also be a busy year with between 30-40 German events taking place in Vietnam. 
Ambassador Schulze made positive remarks on the Germany-Vietnam trade and investment ties. 

The ambassador emphasised that environmental protection is one of three priorities in Germany’s official development assistance policy to Vietnam and his country will approve a EUR3 million (US$4.5 million) aid to help Vietnam improve the environment.