The agreement was reached at the 6th session of the Vietnam-Angola Intergovernmental Committee in Hanoi on October 30.

The Vietnamese delegation was led by Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan, head of the Vietnam-Angola subcommittee. The Angolan delegation was led by Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Maria Candida Teixeira, head of the Angola-Vietnam subcommittee.

Both sides agreed to share experience in education management between their institutions and increase the number of Vietnamese education experts at Angola’s tertiary institutions.

Angola proposed Vietnam increase the number of government scholarships for Angolan students to follow university and post-graduate courses in the country, and send PhD degree holders to joint projects at Angola’s research centres.

Vietnam is willing to send medical experts to Angola to work in new cooperation areas such as traditional medicine and pharmaceutical manufacturing.

They underlined the need to strengthen cooperation in the areas of mutual concern, including epidemic prevention, preventative medicine, traditional medicine, and pharmaceutical manufacturing and supply.

 Both sides agreed to boost bilateral cooperation in agriculture, aquaculture, labour, and social affairs.

The Vietnamese side proposed signing an agreement on labour cooperation with Angola to support Vietnamese businesses in sending workers to Angola and to protect Vietnamese guest workers’ legitimate rights and interests in the country.

Reviewing the result of bilateral cooperation in 2011-13, Ministers Luan and Teixeira agreed that progress was made in the areas of politics-diplomacy, education-training, agriculture and rural development, trade and health care.

Two-way trade increased sharply to more than US$125 million in 2012, up 70% against 2011.

The two ministers signed the minutes of the meeting and agreed to convene the next meeting of the committee in capital Luanda in 2015.VOV