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Singapore and Vietnam have developed excellent and wide-ranging relations, built-up up over the years through exchanges of visits at the highest level. President Tran Duc Luong visited Singapore in March 1998, and in turn, President S R Nathan became the first Head of State from Singapore to visit Vietnam when he made a State Visit in February 2001. The expansion of trade and business contacts between Singapore and Vietnam over the years has also been a significant factor in forging strong bilateral ties. As an indication of the strength of this commercial relationship, Singapore remains the largest investor in Vietnam, having made cumulative investment of US$7.26 billion by end 2001. Singapore also ranks consistently as one of Vietnam's most important trading partners. The Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park and the Vietnam-Singapore Technical Training Centre in Binh Duong province are concrete symbols of the close cooperation between the two countries. Other than working closely together in ASEAN, Vietnam and Singapore also cooperate closely in other fora such as ASEM, APEC and FEALAC. Singapore is also honoured to play a role in Vietnam's human resource development. Since 1992, more than 2500 Vietnamese have received training in Singapore under the Singapore Cooperation Programme in areas such as healthcare, environment, finance and trade, productivity, public administration and English language training. In February 2002, Singapore formally established the Vietnam-Singapore Training Centre in Hanoi, with a focus on capacity building for Vietnamese officials. Singapore has also been providing scholarships to Vietnamese students to pursue academic courses including, among others, the ASEAN Secondary Three Scholarships, the Singapore Scholarship (undergraduate studies) and the NUS' Master in Public Management and Master in Public Policy Programmes (post-graduate studies). . . . . .
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