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Vietnam Purchases New US Embassy in Washington DC for $23.7m

It follows a 2021 deal in which the United States leased land in Hanoi for a new embassy. 

Tuoi Tre News reports that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently finished negotiations to buy a new Vietnamese embassy location in Washington D.C. The building in question, which is located on Garfield Street in the American capital, was previously the Belgian embassy, and the foreign affairs ministry purchased it from Belgium. 

With the deal now confirmed, the property will be returned to the US Department of State, which will then lease the building to the Vietnamese side for 99 years. 

According to the news source, all of the fine print around such a deal will be finalized by the end of this year, heralding the end of a process which began in August 2019, when the Vietnamese government approved the project. 

It is not clear when exactly Vietnamese diplomatic staff will move in to the building.

Last August, the US Embassy in Hanoi signed an agreement with the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment to lease a land plot in Cầu Giấy District, where a new US$1.2 billion embassy will be built, one of America's most expensive embassies in the world. 

That signing ceremony took place during a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris.

[Photo: US Vice President Kamala Harris (left) with Vice President Võ Thị Ánh Xuân (right) during the former's Vietnam visit last year/Minh Nhật via VietnamNet]

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