Because the government couldn't argue that with due only to economic reasons, since this would have damaged the GDR's reputation of being a helping country, the agreement to bring contract workers to the GDR from the SRV was officially propagated as "labour cooperation" between the "workers" and farmers' "state" within the scope of "socialistic economic integration.".
However, it was not only Vietnam's lower level of development which lead to the cooperation between both states, but also the political system was much less distinct as Vietnam was just in the process of recovering from its recent war with the USA. Above all were political motives, dictated by the imperialistic politics of the UdSSR, that induced the decision.
Since the beginning of the 1970s, several bilateral contracts at colleges and technical colleges had been made between the two states, so that many young students from the SRV were sent to East Germany. In most cases, the state and the citizens of the GDR financed the stay and study of the foreigners through so-called solidarity funds with the goal of putting down a marker against the imperialistic Western States. Unlike the 'brain drain' common in the the USA and other western industrial countries, the fundamental reason that young students from socialist countries attended college in foreign socialist countries was the endeavour the be trained in highly qualified jobs for their home countries, which they strongly felt related to due to their Asian mentality. Another example of solidarity support between the GDR and SRV was the ''Vietnam-Aktion'' of the 1960s. Bilateral proceedings led to the ''Vereinbarung zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Regierung der DRV in Betrieben und Einrichtungen der DDR'' from 1966, an agreement between the Governments of the GDR and the SRV for Operations and Institutions in the GDR, and thereupon in the following months many trainees came to the GDR.
