Peres plans for Vietnam trip

President is scheduled to pay a state visit to Vietnam on November 21 at the invitation on Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
President Shimon Peres_311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
President Shimon Peres_311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Israel’s peripatetic President Shimon Peres is traveling yet again – this time to Vietnam.
Peres is scheduled to pay a state visit to Vietnam on November 21 at the invitation on Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. He will be accompanied by a 60-member business delegation.
Peres, who will be the first Israeli president to set foot in Vietnam, had initially planned to go there some 18 months ago, when he went to Korea. Arrangements had already been made for him to continue on to Vietnam, but he was asked by Hanoi to postpone the visit in the wake of the ongoing controversy over the Israeli raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara while it was trying to sail to Gaza.
Israel and Vietnam entered into diplomatic relations with Israel in July 1993, and in the same year Israel opened an embassy in Hanoi, but Vietnam did not open its embassy in Tel Aviv until June 2009. It was Peres who accepted the credentials of Vietnam’s first resident ambassador to Israel, Dinh Xuan Luu.
The aim of the week-long visit is to strengthen and expand political and economic strategic ties between Israel and Vietnam.
In addition to the business delegation, which is headed by leaders of Israel’s defense industries, Peres will be accompanied by Science and Technology Minister Daniel Herschkowitz and Agriculture Minister Orit Noked.
Other members of the business delegation will represent a vast array of industries including infrastructure, communications, finance, hi-tech, water technologies and agriculture.
Indeed, Israel is increasingly moving into the Asian market.
Vietnam’s fast growing, albeit not altogether stable economy, is attracting investors from all over the world despite its soaring inflation.
Israeli business entrepreneurs are equally aware of Vietnam’s potential and want to get a firm footing while it is still possible.
Peres will meet with various Vietnamese dignitaries including Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Nguyen Sinh Hung Chairman, of the National Assembly with whom he will discuss the most recent developments in the Middle East.
Peres will also issue warnings about the dangers to the world if Iran is permitted to continue its nuclear program.