Monday Business News

Beijing, Hanoi pledge to boost trade 
Agence France-Presse . Hanoi 

In a step to resolving long-running disputes, China and Vietnam have pledged to turn contentious border areas into economic growth zones and jointly explore oil-rich offshore areas in the future.
  The communist neighbours — who stress their comradely ties but also have a history of distrust and conflict — reached the agreement during a visit by Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung to Beijing, state media said.
  Both countries are among claimants to the Spratly islands in the South China Sea, believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves, and claim sovereignty over the Paracel islands, which are occupied by China.
  During Dung’s visit, which ended Sunday, Beijing and Hanoi ‘agreed to start a joint survey in the waters outside the mouth of Beibu Bay at an early date,’ China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
  They would ‘gradually advance the negotiations on demarcation of these maritime zones and will jointly exploit the zones,’ Xinhua said.
  The statement did not settle the hot-button issue of the Spratlys, a strategic string of rocky outcrops in the middle of the South China Sea that are also claimed by Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines.
  But China and Vietnam pledged to ‘collaborate on oceanic research, environmental protection, meteorological and hydrological forecasts, oil exploration and information exchanges by the two armed forces.’
  The agreement, although vague on details and timelines, signals a gradual shift in relations between East Asia’s economic giant and the southern neighbour which for many centuries was ruled by China.