An art performance at the meeting. Photo: VNA

A meeting was held in Khammouane province of Laos on October 28 to celebrate the 60th founding anniversary of Vietnam-Laos diplomatic ties and 45 years of the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation between the two countries, VNA reported.

The event saw the attendance of representatives from the Vietnamese provinces of Quang Binh, Ha Tinh, Nghe An and Quang Tri that border Laos, and from the Vietnamese Embassy in Laos and the Vietnamese Consulate General in Savannakhet.

In his remarks, Secretary of the Party Committee and Governor of Khammouane Vanxay Phongsavane thanked all-level Party Committees, authorities and people of Vietnam for their support to Laos during the country’s past struggle for national liberation as well as its present cause of national defence, construction and development, and the development of Khammouane province in particular.

Tran Thang, Chairman of the People’s Committee of the central province of Quang Binh, noted that the friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and Laos have been developing constantly over the past decades.

At the ceremony, Khammouane province presented certificates of merit to organisations and individuals for their outstanding performance in supporting the locality in the 2017-2022 period.

Trade turnover between Vietnam and Laos hit USD 1.22 billion in the first nine months of 2022, up 29% year-on-year. Of the total, exports were valued at 465.7 million USD, up 4.1%, and imports 755.8 million USD, up 51.3%.

According to the Vietnam Trade Office in Laos, with the current growth pace, two-way trade may reach USD 1.6 billion this year, up 20% year-on-year, fulfilling the target set by the countries’ senior leaders at the 44th meeting of the inter-governmental committee on bilateral cooperation.

The central province of Khammouane is located in the middle between Borikhamsay at the north and Savannakhet at the south. Khammouane province also shared a border with Vietnam at the east and Nakhon Phanom, Thailand to the west.

Border guard diplomacy is regularly organised by the two countries to maintain border security sovereignty, creating peace of mind and stability for the locals.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, the Vietnam's border provinces have given free medical examinations, distribute medicine for people, and support Covid prevention and control for border villages of Khammouane province.

In 2021, an 11-member working team from the central province of Quang Binh had presented a level-2 biological safety cabinet to Khammouane and conducted testing on 6,700 samples, discovering 738 cases positive to SARS-CoV-2.

Quang Binh provided Khammouane with additional bioproducts worth about VND 500 million to serve testing activities amid the rising number of infections in the province, raising the province's total assistance to Khammouane this time to about VND 2.7 billion (USD 118,444).

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