Vietnam Communist Party leader to visit North Korea

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's ruling Communist Party leader has accepted an invitation to visit North Korea, state-run Vietnam television reported on Tuesday.

Nong Duc Manh, the General Secretary of the Communist Party -- Vietnam's most senior politician -- would visit Pyongyang, the evening TV news broadcast said without providing details.

The last senior Vietnamese figure to visit North Korea was then-President Tran Duc Luong in May 2002.

Last Thursday, Vietnam said North Korean Prime Minister Kim Yong-il would visit Hanoi "at a coming date".

In signs of some change from isolated North Korea, it has agreed to disable its nuclear capability and President Kim Jong-il hosted a summit last week with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun. The leaders agreed to try to bring a formal peace to the divided Korean Peninsula, the Cold War's last frontier.

Also on Tuesday, Vietnam's government Web site (www.chinhphu.vn) said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had "approved an investment protection and encouragement pact with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

It said the government asked the foreign ministry and the Ministry of Planning and Investment "to build a roadmap to implement the pact".

The two countries have done almost no trade with each other since 1996, according to the Vietnam government.

Vietnam has relations with both North Korea and South Korea. The South Koreans are the biggest investor in the Southeast Asian country whose economy is growing at more than 8 percent a year.

In the last 20 years, Vietnam has opened the door to a market economy and its GDP is estimated at about $62 billion. Diplomats have described Vietnam's economic growth and rise from isolation as an example for impoverished North Korea, whose GDP is estimated at $23 billion.