Party leader's visit to Malaysia achieves substantive results

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee To Lam, his spouse, and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation arrived at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi on November 23 afternoon, successfully concluding their three-day official visit to Malaysia at the invitation of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his spouse.

Le Hoai Trung, Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Chairman of its Commission for External Relations, has talked to the press regarding the outcomes of Party General Secretary To Lam’s three-day official visit to Malaysia.

According to Hoai Trung, the visit, Lam’s first in his new role as the Party General Secretary, achieved profound and practical results. While in Malaysia, the delegation engaged in 18 key activities, including extensive talks with Malaysian leaders as well as meetings with major corporations and with representatives of the overseas Vietnamese community.

The Party leader gave a policy speech at the prestigious University of Malaya, outlining Vietnam’s vision for future relations with Malaysia and for a united, prosperous ASEAN Community. His remarks also underlined the fact that Vietnam has attached importance to ASEAN. Meanwhile, the leader’s spouse and the wife of the Malaysian Prime Minister compared notes on women’s advancement in both nations.

Party General Secretary To Lam and Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim consented to take the bilateral relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and issued a joint declaration on this upgrade, affirming their commitments to offering mutual support on the nations’ respective development paths.

Vietnam and Malaysia are now each other's only comprehensive strategic partners in Southeast Asia, providing a critical framework and orientation for bilateral cooperation in the new era focusing on four key pillars, namely stepping up cooperation in politics, defence, and security; strengthening economic connectivity for sustainable development; exploring new cooperative areas such as digital transformation, clean energy, and advanced technologies; and deepening coordination on international and multilateral issues.

Regarding domestic and global issues, both nations’ leaders emphasized the two countries’ historical and cultural similarities as well as common goals in development, which could consolidate greater political trust and deeper collaboration between the Communist Party of Vietnam and Malaysia’s major political parties.

They concurred to work together to build a cohesive and prosperous ASEAN Community, with the Party leader underscoring Vietnam’s strong support for Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship in 2025.

During the visit, the leaders of both nations underscored the importance of maintaining peace, security, stability, and safety and freedom of navigation and aviation in the East Sea, not using or threatening to use force, and resolving disputes through peaceful means in accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982, Trung went on to say.

He said the visit garnered significant attention from the Malaysian media, particularly regarding the decision to elevate the bilateral relations.

The outcomes of the trip are of great significance, helping both sides further harness their cooperation potential, leverage their respective strengths, and make contributions to strengthening a peaceful environment conducive to the new phase of national and regional development.

Regarding future directions to build on such significant outcomes, Trung stressed that the initial task for the two countries’ relevant agencies is to promptly concretize the framework of the newly established Comprehensive Strategic Partnership through the development of a comprehensive action plan, while reviewing and advancing necessary agreements to create an effective collaboration mechanism.

Based on this plan, ministries and sectors involved should quickly work out specific programmes to ramp up traditional areas of cooperation, while placing particular focus on new and emerging fields such as green economy, innovation, science and technology, digital transformation, and green energy.

Relevant agencies should also regularly review, monitor, and evaluate the implementation of these plans and programmes to ensure that agreements are effectively translated into reality, serving the developmental goals of the two nations in the new era.

The Party official voiced his hope that the two sides will continue to intensify exchanges, sharing, and interactions through state, party, and people-to-people channels to nurture and advance their relations and solidify a foundation for the robust development of the bilateral relations in the future.