At a meeting with Mr Gianfranco Fini, the State leader informed him of the results of the talks between him and Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.

Mr Triet said that both sides devised specific measures to boost bilateral cooperation in economics, trade and investment by encouraging Italian businesses to carry out their major investment projects in Vietnam and creating the best possible conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises from both countries to share experience and set up partnerships.

Mr Triet praised the development and cooperation between the two parliaments in the parliamentary alliance and the Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership Meeting. He expressed his wish that the two legislative bodies would continue to expand cooperation and implement all high-level agreements reached by their governments.

For his part, Fini said that Mr Triet’s visit represented an important milestone in bringing bilateral relations to a higher plane while praising the significant achievements that Vietnam has recorded over the past few years.

Mr Fini hoped that in its capacity as ASEAN President in 2010, Vietnam will positively contribute to making relations between ASEAN and the EU more effective and substantive.

Talking to Mayor of Rome Alemanno, Mr Triet praised the city for taking part in activities to celebrate the 1000^th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi and invited Rome to join the club of 1000 year-old cities established recently by Hanoi.

The Vietnamese State leader reiterated that Vietnam wants to promote multifaceted cooperation with Italy as well as with Rome and is ready to create favourable conditions for the city to cooperate with Vietnamese localities in investment, business, culture and tourism.

At a meeting with Italian communists, Mr Triet thanked them for providing valuable support to Vietnam during its past struggle for national independence and liberation and during the current Doi Moi (Renewal) process.

Mr Triet expressed his delight at the fine development of relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and Italian communist parties and affirmed that the CPV wants to further strengthen relations with them.

The Italian communists expressed their belief that under the CPV’s leadership, the Vietnamese people will continue to make greater achievements during the process of national construction and development.

On the occasion, Mr Triet conveyed Party leader Nong Duc Manh’s regards to General Secretary of the Italian Communist Refoundation Party Paolo Ferrero and General Secretary of the Italian Democratic Party Luigi Bersani.