The European country will continue including Vietnam in its list of recipients for annual official development assistance (ODA), she said in a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Davos on January 28.

PM Dung and President Doris Leuthard expressed their pleasure at the development of the friendship and multi-faceted cooperation between the two countries.

Regular exchanges of high-level visits have created a driving force behind strong cooperation in many areas, especially economics, trade and investment, they said.

Despite the global economic downturn, two-way trade reached about US$3 billion in 2009, up 20 percent against the previous year. Switzerland’s investment in Vietnam was US$1.4 billion.

President Leuthard expressed her willingness to facilitate business ties and investment flow between the two countries, for their mutual benefit, particularly in the encouragement of Swiss firms to invest and do business in Vietnam.

PM Dung said Vietnam creates favourable conditions for Swiss enterprises to operate in a long-term and stable environment, particularly in tourism, banking and finance, and technology.

He asked Switzerland to recognise Vietnam as a market economy, creating the conditions for the Southeast Asian nation to effectively participate in the system of multilateral trade and expand economic and investment ties with Switzerland.

The PM expressed deep appreciation for Swiss ODA commitment in 2010 amounting to more than US$21 million and affirmed that Vietnam will effectively use the resource in the prioritised areas of poverty reduction, grassroots health care, rural development and environmental protection.

He proposed that the Swiss government provide its ODA to new areas such as institutional development, human resources development and adapting to climate change in the coming years.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is in Davos for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.