Danang (Vietnam), Nov 9 (EFE) .- The president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, began her state visit in Vietnam today in Hanoi with a meeting with the country's president, Tran Dai Quang, before to travel to Danang to participate in the summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC).

Bachelet, who arrived in the Vietnamese capital on Wednesday, began his day with two floral offerings in the monument of the martyrs of Vietnam and in the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, where lies the mummified body of the revolutionary leader who died in 1969.

Afterwards, the Presidential Palace was received, where he dispatched with his counterpart, Tran Dai Quang, on bilateral political and economic relations of both countries, which in 2011 signed a free trade agreement.

In the afternoon, Bachelet will hold meetings with the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong; of the National Assembly, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, before leaving for Danang, 800 kilometers south of the capital.

Tomorrow Friday and Saturday he will participate in the APEC summit together with the leaders of the other 20 economies in this forum: Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, South Korea, United States, Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam.

Chile is one of the top defenders of economic integration in the region and with the expectation of a possible trans-Pacific agreement (TPP) between eleven countries, already without the US, which left it last January.