North Korean premier meets Vietnam's president

Oct 29, 2007, 9:50 GMT

Hanoi - North Korea's prime minister, Kim Yong Il, met Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet on Monday as part of a working trip, state media said.

The meeting was part of a working visit by the North Korean premier - who is no relation to the country's supreme leader, Kim Jong Il - that includes a study of the fellow-communist Vietnam's economic transformation

Triet, a long-time supporter of market reforms in Vietnam, and Kim met on Monday morning before Kim was to fly to Ho Chi Minh City to continue his visit.

'Kim Yong Il congratulates Vietnam for its great achievements in the course of industrialization and modernization and hopes Vietnam will obtain better achievements in the process of socialism,' VNA reported.

On Triet's part, 'the president is happy about the achievements of the socialism('s) progress in North Korea,' VNA said.

Kim was welcomed in Hanoi on Saturday by his Vietnamese counterpart, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, in a lavish military ceremony.

The visit by Kim is part of a Southeast Asian tour by the prime minister of the isolated communist state.

While both countries are run by communist parties, Vietnam has been administering free-market reforms for the past 20 years while North Korea's command economy has kept the country in desperate poverty.

Kim is scheduled to visit a coal mine and a port in northern Vietnam, as well as special export zones in Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnamese officials said that Kim's delegation specifically wanted to discuss Vietnam's economic reforms, known as 'doi moi' (renewal).

However, it was unclear whether North Korea might be considering similar reform measures to ease desperate poverty.

Kim's visit follows this month's trip by Vietnam's Communist Party leader, Nong Duc Manh, to Pyongyang where he met with Kim Jong Il and extended an invitation for the supreme leader to visit Vietnam later this year.

Hanoi keeps diplomatic relations with both North and South Korea.

Kim is expected to visit an export manufacturing zone in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday before traveling on to Malaysia on Wednesday.