At their meeting on the sidelines of the 43rd ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Jakarta, Indonesia, on September 6, both leaders expressed their delight to meet each other for the third time within two years.
PM Chinh hailed the US Vice President’s contributions to the bilateral relationship, particularly her support for the COVID-19 vaccine supply to the Vietnamese people.
He expressed his hope to meet with Vice President Harris again in the coming time to concretise high-level agreements in order strengthen the Vietnam-US ties intensively, effectively and practically.
Vietnam is coordinating with the US to prepare for US President Joe Biden's upcoming visit to the Southeast Asian nation, PM Chinh said.
On this occasion, the PM congratulated the President, the Vice President and the people of the US on the positive outcomes in overcoming difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and obtaining solid socio-economic achievements over the past time.
For her part, Vice President Harris stressed the importance of President Biden’s State visit to Vietnam at the invitation of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, believing that it will mark a new milestone in the bilateral relations.
On the same day, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also had a meeting with his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau, and President of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Yoon Suk Yeol.
* On September 7, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, and Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin on the sidelines of the 43rd ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Vietnamese PM Pham Minh Chinh (L) meets with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Jakarta on September 7. (Photo: VNA)
At the meeting with PM Modi, PM Chinh once again congratulated India on its historic successful launches of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft to the moon and the Aditya-L1 spacecraft to study the sun as well as its recent economic, military and scientific - technological achievements; and successful presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
The two PMs reaffirmed the traditional partnership, close friendship, and similar strategic interests between their countries while speaking highly of the increasingly practical and effective progress of the bilateral relations.
They shared the view that on the basis of the long-standing relations and strong political trust, Vietnam and India should increase high-level mutual visits and meetings and step up cooperation in different fields, especially such new areas as digital transformation, energy transition, and green and sustainable economic development to generate common benefits for the two countries' people.
They agreed to enhance security - defence cooperation, a pillar of the Vietnam - India comprehensive strategic partnership. Given difficulties facing the global economy, they agreed to assign their countries’ ministries, sectors, and localities to cooperate closely to help improve the strength of each economy, remove obstacles for enterprises, and facilitate bilateral trade.
Both leaders also concurred in assigning aviation agencies of Vietnam and India to consider licensing each other’s airlines to increase direct flights between their big cities to meet people’s travel demand.
PM Modi acknowledged his Vietnamese counterpart’s proposals on signing a memorandum of understanding on e-commerce and an agreement on bilateral economic cooperation, and on minimising the imposition of trade barriers on each other’s goods.
The Indian PM also affirmed that he will encourage major enterprises of India to increase investment in Vietnam.
The two PMs also agreed that Vietnam and India will continue coordination and mutual support at regional and international forums.
At the meeting with Bangladeshi President Shahabuddin, PM Chinh congratulated the South Asian country on its recent achievements, including becoming the world’s second biggest apparel exporter, and highly valued its efforts to green this industry.
The two leaders emphasised their countries’ traditional friendship and political trust, nurtured by many generations of Vietnamese and Bangladeshi leaders and people. Based on that foundation and after 50 years of diplomatic ties, the bilateral relations have been growing strongly.
They agreed to boost high-level delegation exchanges between the two countries’ Parties, Governments, parliaments and people, and coordinate to prepare for the coming visit to Bangladesh by Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue.
PM Chinh and President Shahabuddin said the two countries will continue sharing experience in socio-economic development, foreign investment attraction and application of green production, especially in the textile - garment and leather footwear industries.
Both sides will actively encourage their enterprises to partner with each other and increase investment, discuss the opening of more direct air routes, provide favourable visa conditions to fuel people-to-people exchanges and tourism cooperation, and foster collaboration in agriculture, fishery, transport, education - training, disaster management, and climate change response, they added.
The Bangladeshi leader lauded the impressive development of trade and investment partnerships, including the four-fold surge in bilateral trade in 10 years.
He encouraged Vietnamese firms to invest in Bangladesh and pledged to create conditions for Vietnam to increase the export of its strong products to Bangladesh. He also vowed close coordination to guarantee food security and effectively implement the MoU on rice trading for 2022 - 2027.
The two leaders affirmed that their countries will keep active cooperation and mutual support at regional and international forums, especially the United Nations, and contribute to peace, stability, cooperation and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
At the meeting between Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, both PMs praised the continued exchange of delegations and high-level contacts between the two countries, as well as the effective cooperation in various areas in economy, trade, investment, national defence-security, labour, education and training, agriculture, sci-tech, tourism, aviation, locality-to-locality and people-to-people exchanges.
Albanese reaffirmed that Australia attaches great importance to enhancing relations with Vietnam. He wished to welcome Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to Australia soon and suggested completing the necessary internal procedures to elevate the bilateral relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership at the appropriate time.
The Australian side is committed to prioritising official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam, especially in areas of Vietnam’s need such as climate change adaptation, energy transition, digital transformation, and digital economy.
The Australian PM also took note of PM Chinh’s proposals regarding increased labour cooperation, education and training, and supply of more scholarships to the Vietnamese students.
The two sides vowed to continue working closely together and making active contributions to promoting dialogue, cooperation and trust building through ASEAN-led mechanisms, on the basis of respect for ASEAN's central role and consultations with ASEAN, for the sake of peace, stability and development in the region and the world.
They also pledged to continue supporting ASEAN's efforts to narrow the development gap and assist less-developed regions, including the Mekong sub-region.
The two countries will also partner with Laos to successfully organise the Climate Change and Energy Transition Conference in Hanoi later this year.
Q.Hoa t.h / VNA
