A delegation from Irkutsk province (Russia) led by its governor Levchenko Sergey paid a visit to Quang Ninh on Nov. 23, in an effort to set diplomatic cooperation tie betwee the two provinces.
Receiving the deleation, Quang Ninh's Chairman Nguyen Duc Long made a brief introduction about Quang Ninh’s recent achievements and its potential for socio-economic development. His introduction focused on tourism, one of the key sectors of the province with the highlight of Ha Long Bay World Natural Heritage attracting millions of tourists to Quang Ninh each year.
“Quang Ninh sets the goal of becoming a province with economic structure of services and industry by 2020. Therefore tourism plays an important role to achieve this goal. Currently, Quang Ninh is speeding up the establishment of the Van Don Special Administrative and Economic zone with a professional administrative organisation and special incentives to effectively attract investments in a number of major projects, namely integrated resort with casino, world class tourism facilities, high-tech industries,... Van Don is expected to become an attractive destination for international tourists and Russia is also the target tourism market”, stressed the Chairman at the meeting.
In addition, Quang Ninh’s Chairman Nguyen Duc Long hoped Irkutsk province, with its experiences, would support Quang Ninh in the areas of mineral exploitation, environmental protection, as well as training the hi-quality human resources and introduce investments from Russia to Quang Ninh.
Emphasizing on the similar potential and advantages of the two provinces, Irkutsk's Governor Levchenko Sergey wished that the cooperation tie between Irkutsk and Quang Ninh would be further developed in all the areas. He then proposed possibilities of tourism and aviation cooperation so that all the potential of both Halong Bay and Baikan Lake could be effectively tapped in the future.
He also invited Quang Ninh’s officials and investors to come to visit Irkutsk and explore investment opportunities. He wished that both sides would sign the MoU on cooperation in the soonest time.
Article by Cao Quynh
