PM Chinh suggests Australia further facilitate Vietnamese agro-fishery products

The Vietnamese Government chief welcomed Governor-General Hurley's first state visit to the nation, the first to Vietnam by an Australian leader after more than four- year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He emphasized that the visit is of great significance in the context the two countries actively celebrating the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations, with ties first established in 1973.

PM Chinh congratulated Australia on achieving impressive results in terms of economic recovery and development after the COVID-19 pandemic, actively improving social security for people, as well as implementing many important international commitments, including climate change response.

The Australian Governor-General expressed his pleasure at returning to Vietnam, hailing great Vietnamese achievements in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, economic recovery and development, production, and the improvement of living standards for people, especially the nation’s efforts to achieve GDP growth rate of over 8% in 2022, the highest seen in the past 10 years.

PM Chinh agreed that the Vietnam-Australia Strategic Partnership has seen strong developments, in which bilateral economic and trade co-operation represents a bright spot, with last year’s two-way trade turnover reaching nearly US$15.7 billion, an increase of close to 27% on-year, thereby making Australia the country’s seventh largest trading partner and the nation the 10th largest trading partner of Australia.

In line with this, the country welcomes major Australian businesses and investment funds to invest in the Vietnamese market in fields such as renewable energy, infrastructure, telecommunications, finance-banking, education, high-tech agriculture, digital transformation, mining, agriculture, aviation, and tourism, PM Chinh told his guest.

He also suggested that Australia create favourable conditions for local businesses to invest in the fields of mining, agriculture, aviation, and tourism.

Regarding security-defence ties, the Vietnamese Government chief suggested that Australia continue to support the nation in training, capacity building, and English teaching. This is along with cybersecurity; co-operation in transnational crime prevention and combat; anti- terrorism efforts; and the fight against economic, drug, and high-tech crimes.

Governor-General Hurley applauded the proposals made by PM Chinh and emphasized that the two countries are two highly complementary economies, with Australia in the process of expanding and diversifying trading partners, in which regional countries are the priority.

He said that the two sides must also bolster linkages in other fields such as education, tourism, agriculture, and people-to-people exchanges, underlining the advantage that airlines of the two countries who have resumed direct flights, with a frequency of 17 flights per week for tourism promotion and development.

He therefore agreed to exchange experience in tourism development, especially with a number of tourism products that are Australia's strengths, such as community tourism, green tourism, study tourism, and health tourism.

The Australian Governor-General highly appreciated the establishment of the Vietnam-Australia Center by the two sides at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, as well as Vietnamese side’s favourable conditions for RMIT University to expand its operations in Vietnam.

With regard to new areas of co-operation such as climate change response and energy transition, the Governor-General affirmed that the Australian side will help the country to achieve its goal of reducing net emissions to "zero" by 2050, as well as helping to co-ordinate with the nation and Laos to organise the ASEAN - Australia high-level Dialogue Forum on climate change and energy transition.

With regard to regional and international ties, PM Chinh and Governor-General Hurley praised the two countries for having closely co-ordinated and supported each other at regional and international forums, especially are at the UN, APEC, and ASEAN.

They also showed their elation at the developments in Australia-ASEAN relations with the upgrading of their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership in October, 2021, as well as the plan to organise a Special Summit to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ASEAN- Australia relations ahead in 2024.

Governor-General Hurley affirmed that Australia supports ASEAN's stance on the East Sea issue.

He agreed that concerned parties should make greater efforts to maintain peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and aviation in the East Sea, respect international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), seriously implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and build an effective and efficient Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) in accordance with international law.

The Australian Governor-General expressed his wish to soon meet PM Chinh on his official visit to Australia.

As part of the occasion, PM Chinh conveyed an invitation to his Australian counterpart to pay an official visit to Vietnam at a convenient time this year.