HANOI, April 3. /TASS/. Russia continues to be one of Vietnam’s major partners in the field of military and industrial cooperation, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told TASS on Friday in the run-up to the official visit of Russian Premier Dmitry Medvedev to Vietnam that begins on Sunday.
"Cooperation between Vietnam and Russia in the defense and security areas makes a practical contribution to the economic development of each of the two countries and to the further expansion of comprehensive strategic partnership between Vietnam and Russia. It also promotes peace, stability and sustainable development in the Asia and the Pacific region and in the world," Nguyen Tan Dung said.
The Vietnamese premier has voiced confidence that relations in the military and military-technical spheres between Vietnam and Russia will continue to be buoyant in the future. "In the coming period we need to raise this interaction to a higher level, which presupposes establishing joint production facilities, holding scientific research, setting up warranty and post-warranty service centers," he said.
Russia is Vietnam’s traditional partner in the field of military procurement. In recent years, the two sides have signed agreements on the sales of arms and military equipment worth more than $4,5 billion. The most significant of these deals were a contract for the purchase by Vietnam of a batch of Russian-made Sukhoi SU-30MK2 multirole fighter jets estimated at about $1 billion and an agreement on selling six Varshavyanka-class stealth submarines worth nearly $2 billion.