The President visited Norway four years after the King and Queen of Norway’s trip to Vietnam in 2004. The State visit started with an official ceremony held at the King and Queen’s Palace in Oslo. The President and the delegation had several important meetings during the stay. Vietnam and Norway are both interested in a growing bilateral relation and an increased trade and industry cooperation.
11/06/2008 :: After a visit to Stortinget (the parliament) with the parliamentary president Thorbjørn Jagland, the President continued with a meeting with the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg to discuss the two countries’ bilateral relationship, UN reform, Climate Change and Human Rights. In addition to that the new Vietnam Strategy from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was introduced during the meeting with SMK (Centre for Environment and Climate). This strategy is focusing on an enhanced trade and industry cooperation, work towards a sustainable development, environment and climate change issues and finally a strengthening of human rights.
The meeting with SMK included a ceremony of signing of 5 new bilateral agreements. These were within areas such as the environment, water supply, capacity building with regards to natural disasters, cooperation with universities about the fishery sector and finally support for the building of the ONE UN Carbon Neutral House in Vietnam.
Innovation Norway also organised in cooperation with NHD (The Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry) a trade and industry seminar were over 60 people from the Vietnamese business delegation met with the Norwegian business community. Telenor had in addition to that a top executive conference where the President and HRH the Crown Prince participated. Several contracts and cooperation agreements between Vietnamese and Norwegian businesses were signed.