Thai PM meets Vietnamese Communist Party's chief

BANGKOK, June 26 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has held talks with the visiting General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, in a full-panel discussion, aimed to enhance bilateral relations between Thailand and Vietnam comprehensively. The discussion, held at Bangkok's Government House on Tuesday evening after a ceremony to officially receive the Vietnamese Communist Party's chief, is also aimed to boost strategic partnership between Thailand and Vietnam to benefit both Thai and Vietnamese people and to prepare for the formation of the ASEAN Community (AC) by 2015, as both sides are member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Thai and Vietnamese leaders also discussed bilateral cooperation on rice and assigned their commerce ministries to work out joint action plans. At a joint press conference held after the talks, the Thai prime minister acknowledged that the strategic partnership will strengthen bilateral relations between Thailand and Vietnam in all dimensions, including a goal to increase the value of two-way trade by 20 per cent annually, or about 15 billion US dollars, within 2020. Nguyen then said that he was satisfied with the discussion, which was full of trust, and he was ready to support bilateral cooperation in sub-regional and regional frameworks, with foreign ministries of both countries to work out joint action plans for the purpose. Nguyen is paying his first official visit to Thailand from June 25-27, as the guest of the Thai government, after his election in 2011 and it is the first official visit to the Thai Kingdom by a General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 20 years. (TNA)