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.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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