Vietnamese minister visit Australia, N Zealand

Sydney (VNA) – Minister of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan has paid visits to Australia and New Zealand to learn from their experiences in building and implementing gender equality policies.

During her visits from June 28-July 2, Minister Ngan had working sessions with
Australian and New Zealand ministries and agencies in charge of international
development aid, housing and women issues, social issues and employment, and labour.
She also met with the two countries’ senior governmental officials and
parliamentarians.

Minister Ngan stressed Vietnam ’s policy of further developing ites
comprehensive partnership with Australia and New Zealand .

Australian and New Zealand senior officials agreed to continue joint efforts with
Vietnam to boost cooperation and partnership in human resource development,
vocational training, labour and social security. They also pledged to study the
possibility of bilateral cooperation agreements between the labour ministries of the
three countries.

The officials spoke highly of Vietnam ’s achievements in implementing gender
equality and raising the role and position of women, stressing that the empowerment
of women will contribute to sustainable socio-economic development.

Ngan’s visits were part of the project on Empowerment of Women in the Public
Sector in the Context of International Economic Integration carried out by Vietnam
’s Foreign Ministry and the United Nations Development Programme from 2008 to
2013.

The project also covers provision of scholarships, study on policy proposals and
arrangement of training courses and talks with the aim of improving leadership
capacity for female officials in the new stage of Vietnam ’s international
economic integration.-Enditem