Transcript of the beginning of the conversation:

Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Sinh Hung, Vietnamese friends – time flies. We met relatively recently, in November. But 2013 has arrived, and it's good that this year in Russian-Vietnamese cooperation is beginning with your visit. I hope you have held and will hold useful negotiations with your counterparts. I think that we could also share our visions of how the strategic partnership between our countries is developing. Let me welcome you once again.

Nguyen Sinh Hung (via interpreter): Mr Medvedev, I am deeply touched by your attention and the opportunity to meet with you today.

Ms Valentina Matviyenko and I have just held very productive talks. We have agreed that we, parliamentarians of both countries, will do our best to invigorate cooperation between our governments and countries, and to promote, through our legislative and creative activities, the implementation of the cooperation programmes and projects that exist between our countries and governments. In particular, we will provide legislative support to and oversee the negotiations on a free trade zone. The signing of an agreement on this issue will certainly have a positive influence on the growth of trade between Vietnam and the member-countries of the Customs Union, primarily Russia. We would like to increase our trade to 7 billion in 2015 and to double this amount by 2020.

Dmitry Medvedev: Let us then discuss this.

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