Vietnam-Qatar relations have made significant improvements in the last 25 years and there will be many further steps in the time to come, Vietnamese Ambassador Nguyen Dinh Thao said.
Speaking to his community members at a gathering recently at the Vietnamese Embassy in Doha on the occasion of the New Lunar Year, he promised to work to further strengthen such good relations with Qatar.
“During my tenure from 2017-2020, I am exerting my best efforts to further develop and strengthen the bilateral relations and build on the friendship between the two countries based on peoples interests,” the envoy said.
He added that in 2018, the year of 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Qatar, “we are expecting to organise high level official visit including the 3rd meeting of Joint Commission between two countries in order to enhance the bilateral relations in different fields.” 
As part of the 25th year celebrations, a wide variety of cultural activities including movie screenings, photo exhibitions, Vietnamese Cultural and Cuisine Festival, and cultural performances will be organised throughout the year to promote cultural diversity, tourism and artistic collaboration between the two countries. 
“My main focus for upcoming three years is making Vietnam more popular as an ideal destination for tourism and investment; bringing Vietnamese more closer to Qatar through Vietnamese products in Qatar and enhancing people-to-people exchange in order to increase the cultural knowledge,” he further promised.
The number of the Vietnamese expatriates in Qatar is currently limited to around 1,400, including overseas Vietnamese and skilled workers. “The Vietnamese are working in many fields, some of them are researchers and students, engineers, but mostly workers in construction and other services,” pointed out Nguyen.
However, he hoped that the figure would increase in the future, stressing that education is very important in maintaining a successful expatriate experience for Vietnamese working in Qatar.
“Currently there are important ongoing negotiations concerning these issues. In recent years, the governments of Vietnam and Qatar have been in line with each other to promote co-operation in many fields, especially in labour co-operation aimed at increasing the number of Vietnamese in Qatar. Hence, I believe that the Vietnamese population in Qatar will increase in the future,” he said.
Lately, the Government of Qatar has officially affirmed the recognition of Vietnam’s market economy status. The Government of Vietnam highly appreciates the decision made by Qatar. This vividly reflects the multi-faceted co-operation and mutual trust between the two countries.
“This recognition is a key contributor to deepening the bilateral relations between Vietnam and Qatar, particularly the potential economic and trade ties,” he explained.
Throughout the past 25 years, there have been visits of high-level delegations between the two countries. Vietnam plays an important role in global food security as it has made progress in food security and increased production for international markets.
“Accordingly, Vietnam is ready to co-operate with Qatar especially in the field of food security. High-tech agriculture is also a development focus for Vietnam in maintaining food security and it is an area which Qatar and Vietnam can work together,” maintained the ambassador. 
The community gathering featured a number of activities aimed to get the community members closer to each other.




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