Finnish President Tarja Halonen and her husband are on an official visit to Vietnam from February 21-23 at the invitation of Vietnam’s State President Nguyen Minh Triet.

This is the first State visit to Vietnam by the Finnish President since the two countries established their diplomatic ties on January 25, 1973.

Mrs Taria Halonen is accompanied by Finland’s high-ranking officials and leading entrepreneurs involved in information and technology, telecommunications, shipbuilding, elevator production, aviation, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, paper industry, environmental protection, energy, mining, metallurgy and financial and banking industries.

As one of the first Western European which have established its diplomatic relations with Vietnam, Finland always supports Vietnam during the past period of economic embargo and the current process of national construction and development.

Over the past few years, both sides have maintained their contacts and exchange of high-level visits. The most recent events were Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen’s visit to Vietnam for the ASEM 5 Summit in October, 2004 and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to Finland for the ASEM 6 Summit in September, 2006.

In 2007, Vietnam was one of the two Asian countries, which continued to be considered a major partner in terms of development cooperation with Finland.

Priority given to bilateral cooperation in poverty reduction focuses on three areas of general rural development, water supply and waste treatment and capacity building and reform assistance.

Finland is currently co-operating with Vietnam in the form of financial support for the national poverty reduction programme 135. In the 2007-2009 period, Finland is continued to providing EUR17 million for the second phase of the programme.

Finland is one of Vietnam’s traditional ODA donors which have pledged to provide US$31.7 million in aid for the country in 2008 with a focus on poverty reduction, sustainable development, water supply and afforestation.

The operation of Finish-funded projects in Vietnam has proved effective. The most typical projects are the programme on general rural development in central Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue and the water supply programme in northern Hai Phong port.

Apart from bilateral cooperation channel, Finland has also assisted Vietnam in the form of multilateral cooperation with the EU Commission, United Nations agencies, international financial organisations like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB), non-governmental organisations and the Mekong River Commission.

Besides providing non-refundable aid, Finland will provide preferential credits to Vietnam within the framework credit of agreements signed by the Ministry of Finance and Finnish banks.

However, bilateral economic cooperation is still far from meeting the two countries’ potential as two-way trade only stood at an estimated level of US$190 million in 2007, up 26 percent over 2006. Finland’s direct investment in Vietnam merely reached US$65 million (approximately US$28 million in 2007 alone).

Finland’s trade turnover accounted for a small proportion of Vietnam’s total import-export turnover in the past year.
However, the two sides have constantly tried to improve bilateral relations in the areas of culture, education, security, national defense, tourism and consular affairs.

Around 120 Vietnamese students are studying in Finland, mainly on a self-financing basis, mainly in the fields of information and technology and business administration.

In November, 2006, the Finish Ministry for Foreign Affairs decided to put Vietnam (the only country in Asia) on its list of aid recipients for the second phase of the North-South-South Higher Education Institution Network Programme at a total cost of EUR 4.5 million. Under the programme, the Finnish Government will sponsor the exchange of higher education and master-degree students and teachers between Finnish universities and Vietnamese partners and is likely to open PhD courses with a training period ranging from three to six months, even to one year, for the whole tertiary education programme.

The two countries are committed to boosting scientific and technological cooperation in the near future. In terms of information and technology, Finland’s Nokia telecom company - the world’s renowned mobile equipment producer has been entering in Vietnam’s market since 1996 to provide hand phone products, which now account for 57 percent of the country’s market share.

In the tourism sector, the number of Finnish tourists to Vietnam  reached 6,000 in 2007, an increase of 12 percent from 2006. This was a modest figure despite intensive effort to introduce famous tourism sites to Finnish people over recent years.

As early as in 2005, in order to facilitate Finnish citizens’ travel and investment in Vietnam, Vietnam decided to exempt visas for Finnish citizens to stay in Vietnam within 15 days.

During her current visit to Vietnam, Finnish President Tarja Halonen is expected to hold talks with State President Nguyen Minh Triet, meet with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong and pay a courtesy visit to Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh.

She will also attend a seminar on trade and investment, a round-table seminar on gender equality, a ground-breaking ceremony for the waste warter treatment factory in Hai Phong and visit the Pha Rung shipbuilding factory.