Ngo Phuong Ly, the spouse of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and President To Lam, and Kyu Kyu Hla, the spouse of Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing, visited Van Phuc silk village in Ha Dong ward, Hanoi, on September 5.
Kyu Kyu Hla is accompanying her husband during an official visit to Vietnam from September 4 to 6.
The two ladies first visited the temple of the village’s silk weaving ancestor, which preserves memories of the origin of the over-1,000-year-old silk weaving craft. They joined local students in making silk-thread bracelets.
Standing beside an ancient loom, Kyu Kyu Hla said it gave her a familiar feeling as weaving has been part of Myanmar people’s lives for thousands of years. Traditional fabrics and silk are used to make Myanmar garments such as htamein and paso.
Ly noted that Vietnam and Myanmar share a rich tradition of handicrafts, particularly silk weaving, with women playing an important role in preserving and passing down cultural values through generations.
She said the two countries share similarities in silk weaving and can enrich their cultural heritage through exchanges and experience sharing. She highlighted lotus silk, an innovation originating in Myanmar that has been introduced to Vietnam, where lotus flowers are abundant, and is now used to make ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese costume.
The two ladies then walked through the village before visiting a silk weaving establishment and a centre for preserving and developing silk products.
Ly said Van Phuc now has more than 200 households and serves not only as a production hub but also as a venue for displaying and promoting silk products.
Vietnamese silk products have increasingly become part of modern life and reached consumers at home and abroad, she noted.
The two ladies also visited Vun Art Cooperative, where more than 40 workers with disabilities create silk paintings from recycled silk scraps.
They inquired after the workers and offered encouragement, expressing their appreciation for the meaningful products created by the cooperative.
On September 4, President Min Aung Hlaing and the high-ranking Myanmar delegation visited the VinFast Hai Phong manufacturing complex to learn about the development of the Vietnamese automobile brand.
VinFast Chairman Pham Nhat Quan Anh briefed the delegation on the company’s closed-loop production process, modern production lines, high level of automation and product range.
At the assembly workshop, the Myanmar leader expressed his impression with the quality and standards of VinFast electric vehicles, praising the plant’s modern facilities and the company’s rapid growth from a domestic brand into a major Vietnamese automobile manufacturer with an expanding international presence.
VinFast is currently present in 16 countries, including Indonesia, India, the Philippines and North America. With its “For a Green Future” orientation, it is expanding investment in production capacity, technology and its electric vehicle ecosystem, bringing Vietnamese electric vehicles and green transport solutions to international markets.
