Vietnam and China signed 10 agreements ranging from agriculture cooperation to cross-border QR code payments yesterday, during Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s (李強) three-day visit to Hanoi, as the two neighbors seek to boost ties.
China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner and a vital source of imports for its manufacturing sector, with bilateral trade jumping 21 percent for the first three quarters from the same period last year to US$148 billion.
The signing ceremony followed Li’s meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. Li and Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary and Vietnamese President To Lam, agreed on Saturday to boost economic ties and farm produce cooperation.
Photo: AFP
Chinh asked China to boost agricultural trade with Vietnam, open doors to Vietnamese farm produce and enhance customs clearance at borders, Vietnemese state broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) reported.
Vietnam and China also signed a document on updating progress on cross-border railway links related to site survey.
“The Vietnamese prime minister also suggested the two countries cooperate to implement signed documents on railway links, modern railway development effectively,” VTV reported.
The two neighbors have repeatedly showed interest in boosting rail links but have not announced concrete plans or the estimated costs to upgrade connections.
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
‘PROVOCATION’: Accusing Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaftlets, the North told eight artillery brigades ‘to get fully ready to open fire’ Tensions on the Korean Peninsula rose again after North Korea ordered troops along its southern border to be ready to fire and military leaders in Seoul said Pyongyang might be preparing to blow up roads connecting the two nations. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected efforts under way in North Korea to destroy the eastern and western roads connecting the two nations, warning that an explosion could take place as early as yesterday. That followed North Korea’s announcement last week that it would “completely separate” its territory from the South, blaming Seoul’s joint drills with the US and the