Transport ministries of China and Vietnam signed here Thursday an agreement and protocols on building a bridge in their border area to facilitate transport of goods and passengers between the two countries.

Building a bridge over the Red River shows the close economic and trade ties between China and Vietnam, and helps facilitate the development of two economic corridors and the Beibu Gulf economic belt involving many Chinese and Vietnamese localities, Weng Mengyong, Chinese vice transportation minister, said at the signing ceremony.

China and Vietnam are actively improve transport networks to promote trade in goods and tourism of the two countries, he said, noting that the closer economic and trade ties benefit their strong development.

"Constructing a bridge over the Red River to link Lao Cai ( northern Vietnamese province) with Hekou (district of China's Yunnan province) will mark a new comprehensive development of relations between Vietnam and China," Nguyen Ngoc Kim, deputy chairman of the People's Committee of Lao Cai, said at the ceremony.

Lao Cai and Yunnan will jointly build the bridge with 21.5 meters in width, named Kim Thanh, in March, and put it into operation in mid-2007 to meet long-term cooperation demand of the two provinces, and help facilitate the development of the economic corridors, Kim stated.

In 2005, over 2.2 million tons of goods and 1.4 million passengers went through the international border gate of Lao Cai- Hekou, using two existing bridges, he said, noting that they are overloaded.

Vietnam's import and export turnovers with China via the border gate have annually grown 15 percent in recent years, Lao Cai's officials said, predicting that they would surpass 1 billion U.S. dollars in 2012.

Economic and trade relations between the two countries have gained encouraging results in recent years as China becomes Vietnam's biggest trading partner, and Chinese statistics show the two-way trade surged 21.6 percent to 8.2 billion dollars in 2005.

Last year, China exported 5.64 billion dollars to and imported 2.55 billion dollars from Vietnam, up 32.5 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively.

Source: Xinhua