Senior Advisor to the U.S. secretary of state David Thorne will travel to Vietnam next week when he is scheduled to visit the site of a university symbolic of the cooperation relation between Hanoi and Washington.

Ambassador Thorne will be in Ho Chi Minh City on August 5 and visit Hanoi on August 6, the U.S. Department of State said Friday in a media note issued from Washington, D.C.

The official will pay a visit to Fulbright University Vietnam, which is a symbol of the rapport between the Southeast Asian country and the U.S.

Work on the university is expected to start on a 15-hectare land plot at the Saigon Hi-Tech Park in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City in 2016 and the first academic year is slated to kick off in September the same year.

The investment license for this university was granted during a historic visit to the U.S. last month by Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

The total investment in the higher education institution is US$70 million, including $5.3 million for the first stage, $20 million (from U.S. Congress) for the second, and $44.7 for the last.

Ambassador Thorne will also engage with Young Southeast Asia Leadership Initiative (YSEALI) members during his stopover in Ho Chi Minh City.

In Hanoi, he will participate in an event marking the 20th anniversary of the establishment of U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic relations as part of the U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Secretary Kerry will visit the Vietnamese capital from August 6 to 8, where he will meet with senior Vietnamese officials, including Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, to “discuss bilateral and regional issues,” department spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement issued July 27 from Washington, D.C.

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