The Chairman of Thai Nguyen Provincial People expressed his great pleasure to welcome and work with Mr. Ng Teck Hean - the Singapore's Ambassador and the delegation, in Thai Nguyen on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Singapore and Vietnam (August 1, 1973-2013).

Mr. Ng Teck Hean thanked the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee for his welcome given to the delegation. The Ambassador said that this was the first time he came to Vietnam. In this trip, Thai Nguyen is the third province about which he wants to come to learn about(first two provinces are Bac Giang and Lang Son) and also the 18th province that he came and worked since he officially held the post of the Singapore’s Ambassador to Vietnam. 

The friendship and bilateral relations between Singapore and Vietnam during past years have reached higher level, have been interested and built by leaders of both sides and people of the two countries. Singapore is the second largest country (ranked behind Japan) that has the largest investment in Vietnam, valuing up to 27 billion USD in total. Singapore constructed five industrial zones in Vietnam. Through this visit, the Ambassador expected to update more information on Thai Nguyen's investment attraction, thereby creating the relationship and investment cooperation between Thai Nguyen Province and Singapore. Because of its very small area (equal to one fifth of the area of Thai Nguyen province), Singapore nearly has to import all agricultural products. As a result, the field interested by the Ambassador in this visit is agriculture, agricultural products, especially clean agriculture.

The Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee presented an overview of Thai Nguyen Province to the Ambassador and the delegation about the provincial's economic, social, geographical, climatic features and natural, industrial, agricultural, educational potentials as well as investment attraction policies, especially foreign investment. He provided with more information on Yen Binh industrial zone and high-technology industrial zone at the West of Thai Nguyen City, also expressed his intention to that the Ambassador will be interested and will introduce Singaporean enterprises to learn about and invest in these two industrial zones. Over last years, the number of Singaporean enterprises who have came to Thai Nguyen remained few; accordingly the province wants to cooperate with more Singaporean enterprises in coming time.

Mr. Ng Teck Hean believes that with favorable investment environment and special preferential policies, Thai Nguyen will become one of provinces attracting the most investment in the country. The Ambassador additionally notified that in September, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will pay an official visit and plans to sign an agreement on multi-field cooperation between the two countries.