Chinese President Hu Jintao is to visit Vietnam on Nov. 15-17 at the invitation of General-Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Nong Duc Manh and the country's President Nguyen Minh Triet.

The upcoming visit by Hu, also General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is expected to further promote the good neighborly and cooperative relations with Vietnam.

The two Asian neighbors have made significant achievements in bilateral ties in recent years.

The frequent exchanges of visits by leaders of the two countries and consensus reached on a wide range of issues have increasingly enriched the contents of the bilateral friendly cooperative ties and moved the ties forward in a steady and healthy way.

Progress has been made on solving issues left over by history. The two countries have agreed to complete the demarcation of land borders and the planting of border markers by 2008.

In addition, the two countries have deepened their economic cooperation, with bilateral trade volume seeing continuous growth.

In 2004, China became Vietnam's biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade volume reaching 6.74 billion U.S. dollars, up 45.3 percent on year-on-year basis.

Bilateral trade amounted to 8 billion dollars in 2005 and is expected to exceed 10 billion dollars this year, meeting the target set by leaders of the two countries four years ahead of schedule.

At a recent summit marking the 15th anniversary of the dialogue of partnership between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his Vietnamese counterpart agreed to further enhance economic cooperation, especially in the fields of infrastructure, energy and transportation.

China-Vietnam friendly relations also feature vigorous cultural and educational exchanges, with up to 200 delegations taking part in cultural activities each year in each other's country.

Meanwhile, learning the Chinese language has become evermore popular in Vietnam. According to the Chinese embassy in Vietnam, the Chinese language has become Vietnam's second largest foreign language just behind English, and around 70,000 Vietnamese are learning Chinese.

Source: Xinhua