Marc De Buck, gedeputeerde Annie Mervillie, gemeenteraadslid

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As member of the Provincial Government of East Flanders in charge of economic affairs and international relations I am honoured to take the floor here today in Vung Tau on this important ASEM aquaculture platform meeting in the presence of H.E. Belgian Ambassador mr. Hubert Cooreman and the Belgian responsible for development cooperation in Vietnam, mr Patrick De Boeck.

I am very pleased that our Provincial Government, maintaining foreign relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam already since 2000, has made of this cooperation one of the key points within its foreign policy. This cooperation, focussing mainly on specific economic projects, also supports the highly appreciated scientific work of the University of Ghent in e.g. the field of aquaculture. The establishment of the Flanders Economic Office in 2007 in HCMC illustrated our strong intention to continue maintaining and to even further elaborate our close relations with Vietnam in a structural way not only in the economic but also in the scientific sphere.

Since many years we are well aware of the importance and the important added value of our university and knowledge centres. We always clearly state for example that the University of Ghent is East Flanders’ finest export product. This conclusion resulted in a structural cooperation between the Province of East Flanders and the University of Gent which is not only the largest university in Belgium but is also very strongly internationally orientated.

Vietnam is an important partner country for the University of Gent, in particular in the field of aquaculture. Professor Sorgeloos, the world authority in aquaculture, is a pioneer in the bilateral cooperation between Belgium and Vietnam with an exemplary cooperation with Vietnamese universities (e.g. Can Tho University) and survey centres (such as RIA 2). Professor Sorgeloos and his team played an important role in the development of the aquaculture sector in Vietnam and made a valuable contribution to the fact that this sector became one of the most important economic sectors in this country.

Proceeding from our global strategy and the conclusion that the University of Ghent in general and the Department of Aquaculture in particular is since many years / decades active in Vietnam, it was for our Provincial Government a logic step to support their activities in Vietnam. In 2004 our provincial government started up the thematic cooperation with professor Sorgeloos in Vietnam. The fact that professor Sorgeloos always aspires to maximally translate his scientific survey into social, economic applications and through this making a contribution to the improvement the living standard of a lot of people, was one of the main reasons to support some aquaculture projects. Also in the future we will continue to support the thematic cooperation in the aquaculture sector, a sector with definitely a very big potential. In consideration with the higher authorities, we will try to make also in the coming years our own small valuable contribution to the development of this sector.

Finally I would like to thank mr Cooreman, Ambassador and mr De Boeck, responsible for development cooperation, for their support of our cooperation in Vietnam, Vietnam which is still a priority country (the only in Asia) for Belgium in the field of bilateral development cooperation.

Thank you very much
Marc De Buck
Member of the Provincial Government of East Flanders