The Sri Lankan President said this while he was working with Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Le Hoang Quan on October 23 as part of his visit to Vietnam from October 23-24.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that with the time-honoured relations between the two countries and many similarities in religion and culture, the two sides would rapidly step into a new, more effective era of cooperation.

He expressed his hope that Sri Lanka would soon have many Vietnamese investors and entrepreneurs and that new cooperation agreements between the two countries would help speed up the process.

The Ho Chi Minh City leader stated that the city would actively implement commitments by the two countries’ leaders and expressed his wish that the city would soon set up close cooperation with Sri Lanka ’s capital city of Colombo and other localities.