Vietnam, Romania hold political consultation

Vietnam always treasures its time-honoured friendship and all-around cooperation with Romania. The country thanks Romania, which is holding the EU presidency for the first half of 2019, for pledging to strongly support the early signing and ratification of the free trade agreement and the investment protection agreement between Vietnam and the EU, Dung said.

He affirmed Vietnam’s readiness to serve as a bridge to boost Romania and the EU’s cooperation with ASEAN when it assumes the ASEAN Chair position in 2020.

The official expressed his appreciation for Romania’s commitment to supporting Vietnam’s candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council for 2020-2021.

For her part, Secretary of State Gheorghita highlighted the recent visit to her country by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, an important event in bilateral ties and hailed the business forum that drew more than 200 enterprises from the two nations during the trip.

She held that the Romanian Government greatly values socio-economic development and international integration achievements of Vietnam in recent years. It attributes great importance to stepping up cooperation with the Southeast Asian nation, especially in trade and investment.

Both sides consented to intensify mutual visits and meetings between the countries’ leaders, continue to effectively realizing the political consultation mechanism between the foreign ministries’ general department directors and deputy ministers, and work closely together to hold activities marking 70 years of bilateral diplomatic ties in 2020.

The countries will soon organise the 16th meeting of the joint committee for economic cooperation in order to discuss orientations for their in the fields matching Romania’s demand and Vietnam’s strength, including oil and gas, oil refinery and petro-chemistry, architecture, construction, seaports, medicine, agriculture, and food processing.

They also concurred to step up educational cooperation through the effective use of the 20 scholarships that Romania grants to Vietnam, as well as work towards the signing of a new educational cooperation programme.

They were of the same mind about strengthening partnerships in agriculture and labour, considering these as fields with huge potential for broader bilateral cooperation in the time to come.

At the event, the two diplomats also compared notes on international and regional issues of shared concern and agreed upon the importance of improving the effectiveness of global governance, regional connectivity, and international law.