Government News 19/12 State Bank Governor visits Laos  Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Van Binh is paying a working visit to Laos from December 17-19. He was received by National Assembly Chairwoman Pani Zathotou and Deputy Prime Minister Somsavad Lengsavath on December 18. The Lao leaders thanked the SBV for its assistance to the Bank of Laos and hoped it will continue sharing its experience to help Laos stabilise the macro-economy, restructure the banking system, and deal with bad debts. They hailed the cooperation, investment activities, and social work of other Vietnamese banks in Laos. Governor Binh wished Laos to reap more fruits in its economic development process and poverty reduction, as well as fulfilling its Millennium Development Goals. Earlier, Binh held talks with his Lao counterpart to seek orientations for future cooperation between the two State banks along with exchanging experience in banking management. Logo of Vietnam-New Zealand’s 40-year ties announced New Zealand’s Embassy in Hanoi and Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City announced an official logo used for all events marking the 40-year milestone of Vietnam-New Zealand diplomatic relations (June 16, 1975 - 2015) on December 18. The logo was designed by a Vietnamese young artist Tran Giang Nam, who won the logo design competition launched by the New Zealand Embassy. It beat 500 other entries. Nam took on the traditional greetings of Maori people in New Zealand with two noses touching each other and combined it with the two countries’ flags and Vietnamese national flower of lotus to convey the friendship between Vietnam and New Zealand. According to New Zealand Ambassador to Vietnam, Haike Manning, the winning logo demonstrates the robust and long-term bilateral friendship between the two countries. The special 40-year-relations celebration, themed ‘New Zealand – Open to the New’, will start on February 5, 2015, followed by a series of events and projects taking place throughout the year. Northern mountainous provinces tighten ties with China’s Yunnan Several cooperation agreements were signed at the fifth meeting of a working group between Vietnam’s four northern mountainous provinces of Ha Giang, Lao Cai, Lai Chau and Dien Bien and China’s Yunnan province on December 18. They include an agreement on coordination regulations on border labour management between Ha Giang and Yunnan, and another on cooperation between Ha Giang’s Dong Van Karst Plateau and Yunnan’s Shi Lin (Stone Forest) National Park. Speaking at the event in Ha Giang, Yunnan’s Deputy Governor Gao Shu Xun said that the relations between his province and the Vietnamese border localities have seen strong developments in all fields over the past years. In the time to come, Yunnan will continue its cooperation with the Vietnamese side in order to expand and further enhance the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership, he added. According to Vice Chairman of the Ha Giang provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Minh Tien, after the fourth meeting held in Yunnan in June 2012, both sides have sped up cooperation in the management of border and border gates so as to maintain peace and stability and facilitate the travel of humans and goods exchanges. Deputy Foreign Minister Dang Minh Khoi asserted that enhancing the friendship and mutually-beneficial cooperation between border localities is important to the two countries’ relations so due attention and support have always been given to the work. Since 2012, the localities’ total import-export value has hit nearly 5 billion USD and their collaboration in building transport infrastructure has made progress. Vietnam, Laos share poverty reduction experience Officials from the northern province of Lao Cai and Laos have shared experience in poverty reduction and new style rural area building. During a meeting in Lao Cai on December 17, Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Doan Van Huong briefed officials from the Lao Central Steering Committee on Rural Development Poverty Reduction on the province’s situation and poverty reduction plan for the 2011-2015 period. People from six out of all nine districts and cities in Lao Cai have been benefited from the Government’s policies for difficult localities. They have had access to electricity, clean water, loans and social and health care services, contributing to improving their living conditions. The poor household rate was reduced to 18.21 percent in 2014 from 35 percent in 2011. The Lao guests highly valued the province’s achievements in poverty reduction and, saying that they will be a valuable lesson for poverty elimination and new style rural area building in Laos. They said they hope Lao Cai province and Lao localities will have cooperation programmes for mutual development. VNA/VNN