Vietnam treasures ties with Kazakhstan
VOV.VN - Vietnam places great importance on traditional friends, including Kazakhstan, National Assembly (NA) Vice Chairman Nguyen Khac Dinh said during his meetings with Kazakhstan officials as part of his visit to Kazakhstan from September 24 to September 28.
During the visit, the Vietnamese legislator held talks with Speaker of the lower house of Kazakhstan’s parliament (Mäjilis) Erlan Zhakanovich Koshanov and Speaker of the Senate Ashimbayev Maulen Sagathanuly.
He also held meetings with Deputy Speaker of the Mäjilis Albert Rau and Deputy Speaker of the Senate of Kazakhstan Zhakip Asanov, as well as Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Agency of Kazakhstan Askhat Zhumagali. The official also met with officials at the Vietnamese Embassy in Kazakhstan and representatives of the Vietnamese community in the country, along with visiting Almaty.
During these talks and meetings, NA Vice Chairman Dinh thanked Kazakhstan for supporting the State and people of Vietnam during its historic struggles for independence and its current efforts of national construction and defence. He affirmed that the country is keen to enhance ties with Kazakhstan across a variety of fields for the benefits of both peoples.
He hailed progress made in bilateral ties, especially after the Vietnam visit by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev last August and valued the mutual support and co-ordination that both sides have shown at international organisations and multilateral forums, especially the UN.
The Kazakh officials applauded the Vietnamese NA Vice Chairman’s visit, which they believe will help to boost the friendship and all-round co-operation between the two countries, as well as the two legislatures.
They affirmed that Kazakhstan views the Vietnamese side as a leading important partner in Southeast Asia and hopes to further strengthen the partnership through all channels and in all fields, especially economics, trade and investment.
The two sides therefore agreed that there is plenty of room for the two countries to enhance their economic, trade, and investment ties, whilst also optimising the free trade agreement between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) towards the two-way trade target of US$1 billion. The two countries boast huge potential for collaboration in other fields such as logistics, transportation, finance, digital transformation, agriculture, and mining. They used the platform to pledge to offer favourable conditions for businesses as they seek further investment opportunities in each other’s market and form joint ventures in the fields of garments and textiles and processing.
Kazakh leaders underlined that with its location in the centre of the Eurasian region, Kazakhstan is keen to strengthen linkages with Vietnam in the field of transport and railways, exploiting transnational railway routes and direct flights between the two countries to increase goods exchange, as well as with EAEU countries in general. In addition, they hope to boost transshipping goods to Europe through the trans-Caspian international transport route.
The Central Asian country also desire to step up bilateral collaboration in digital transformation, artificial intelligence, and high-tech finance, they said, vowing to remove obstacles and provide optimal conditions for businesses of the two sides to partner with each other. Other efforts include backing Vietnamese firms in investing in strong areas of Kazakhstan such as processing, garment, agriculture, finance and banking. In return, the Kazakh side wants to increase the exports of cereals, wheat, and petrochemical products to the Vietnamese market, they said.
Both sides agreed that the signing of an agreement on visa exemption for citizens holding ordinary passports and the opening of direct flights between Vietnam and Kazakhstan (from Cam Ranh to Almaty and Astana) will serve to further facilitate the development of bilateral partnership in trade, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges.
Concerning parliamentary co-operation, NA Vice Chairman Dinh and Kazakh leaders consented to boost ties between the two legislatures in both bilateral and multilateral frameworks. They agreed to intensify delegation exchanges and continue to support each other at multilateral parliamentary forums, whilst strengthening supervision over the implementation of agreements signed during President Tokayev's visit to Vietnam and other important agreements between the two nations.
During his stay, NA Vice Chairman Dinh also attended the inauguration of a showroom of Vietnamese consumer products.
