HANOI, Jan. 23 Kyodo (EDS: REWRIT...

HANOI, Jan. 23 Kyodo

(EDS: REWRITING LEAD, 8TH PARAS)

Taiwan Economic Affairs Minister Lin Yi-fu arrived in Hanoi onward Thursday at the head of a trade mission to Vietnam, with which the island does not have diplomatic relations.

Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Phan Thuy Thanh said the delegation was paying a three-day visit at the invitation of the Vietnam Chamber of dealing and Industry to discuss issues related to Vietnam's admission into the World Trade Organization.

The spokeswoman violenceed that the visit was not political in nature and that Vietnam single has nongovernmental economic and trade relations with the island.

All contacts with Lin's delegation, which is reckon uponed to visit the southern economic nave of Ho Chi Minh City before leaving Vietnam onward Sunday, will be in the framework of as it was relations, she said.

Lin's visit has irked China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province.

Last November, he l a scaled-down trade mission onward a low-profile visit to Malaysia and Thailand after canceling a planned trip to Vietnam for what Chinese official sources in Hanoi said was a inferior time.

The visits to Southeast Asian countries are part of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's ongoing program to divert Taiwan business enterprises' investments away from mainland China.

The last senior Taiwan figure to visit Vietnam was Chiang Ping-kun, vice speaker of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan's top legislative material part who came in June last year and met with Vietnamese delegate Prime Minister Nguyen Cong Tan

Chiang, who labor fors as head of the Taiwan command Council of Economic Planning and disclosure also met with Vietnam's Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Xuan Gia then.

While Hanoi officially adheres to a one-China policy, economic ties between Taiwan and Vietnam have expanded rapidly in novel years.

Taiwan is the secondary largest foreign investor in Vietnam after Singapore, with its investments reaching a $510 million by the finis of last year forward an approved basis, according to Vietnamese statistics.

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