HANOI: Firms from Vietnam and Singapore, including property giant CapitaLand and banking group DBS, have signed deals aimed at boosting close economic links between the two sides, the companies said.

The signings came during an official visit yesterday by the city-state's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, who witnessed the ceremony with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung. Singapore property developer CapitaLand said it signed a joint venture agreement with a Vietnamese developer to build four residential towers in Ha Dong district, near Hanoi, at an estimated cost of $170 million.

Another Singaporean real estate firm, Keppel Land, signed a joint venture agreement to develop villas on the Saigon River in Southern Ho Chi Minh City, Keppel Land said.

At the ceremony, the State Bank of Vietnam presented a foreign bank branch licence for Ho Chi Minh City to Singapore's DBS Bank Ltd, trade promotion group International Enterprise (IE) Singapore said. DBS is the latest foreign financial institution lured by a growing market in the country of about 86 million people. Trade between Vietnam and Singapore amounted to 12.5 billion Singapore dollars (9 billion US) in the first 11 months of last year, IE Singapore said. Singapore was the eighth-largest provider of registered foreign direct investment in the communist country till late November.

After a 5.32 per cent economic growth in 2009, Vietnam is targeting 6.5 per cent this year.