Germany will help improve Vietnam’s education and training, German senior officials affirmed at a meeting in Berlin Feb 8. Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Cuong and German Secretary of State Wolf-Ruthart Born co-chaired the 2nd referential meeting on politics, which focused on measures to boost the bilateral cooperation, the Vietnam government said on its website Feb 9. The German side pledged to assist Vietnam in building the Vietnam Germany University, holding German teaching and vocational training courses. The two sides agreed the economic cooperation is still full of potentials and discussed ways to beef up specific projects. Earlier Feb 5, Cuong and Minister of State at the German Federal Foreign Office Corneli Pieper attended the launching ceremony of “Vietnamese Year in Germany 2010”, which along with “German Year in Vietnam” is to mark the two nations’ 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Germany has provided around EUR1 billion in ODA for Vietnam since 1990. Two-way trade reached $4.6 billion last year. Some 100,000 Vietnamese people are living in Germany and approx 100,000 people can speak German in Vietnam. Around 3,000 Vietnamese students are studying in Western European nation.
