Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Governor-General of Australia Peter Cosgrove highly appreciated the fine cooperation between the two countries at the United Nations, ASEAN, and other multilateral forums, during their meeting in Hanoi on May 24^th.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (L) and Governor-General of Australia Peter Cosgrove. (Photo: VNA)

Both sides pledged to continue their close coordination on the East Sea issue and in the implementation of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

PM Phuc recalled his good impressions of Australia and its people during his official visit to the country when attending the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit two months ago, especially the thorough and warm welcome offered to the Vietnamese delegation by the Governor-General and his spouse.

Governor-General Peter Cosgrove, who is on a State-level visit to Vietnam from May 23^rd to 26^th, expressed his delight at visiting Vietnam for the first time as the two countries are celebrating 45 years of diplomatic relations (1973-2018) and 20 years of their defence ties (1998-2018).

He congratulated the Vietnamese Government and people on their significant achievements across various fields, especially in boosting economic development, expanding foreign relations, maintaining social stability, and ensuring security.

The leaders voiced their pleasure at the results of cooperation between the two countries over the past 45 years. Accordingly, the bilateral political trust has been increasingly tightened through the regular exchange of delegations at all levels. Two-way trade has risen sharply, reaching USD 6.5 billion in 2017. Australia is currently running 414 investment projects in Vietnam, ranking 19^th among the 126 foreign investors in the Southeast Asian country. Bilateral cooperation in security-defence, education-training, and science-technology is also growing strongly, and has become an important pillar in Vietnam-Australia relations.

Both sides pledge to continue their close coordination on the East Sea issue and in the implementation of the CPTPP. (Photo: VNA)

In order to further deepen cooperation between the two countries, PM Phuc suggested that both sides actively finalise the 2016-2019 Action Programme, promote the implementation of the connotations agreed in the “Joint Statement on the establishment of a strategic partnership between Vietnam and Australia”, and accelerate measures to increase two-way trade and investment, including the reduction/removal of trade barriers and the creation of favourable conditions for their business communities.

The Australian Governor-General agreed with PM Phuc on the necessary directions to boost bilateral relations, recommending that the two sides take advantage of the strengths of education-training, labour, cultural, sports, and tourism collaboration in order to facilitate people-to-people exchange, thus contributing to strengthening the friendship and mutual understanding between the two nations.

He applauded Australia’s continuous prioritisation of official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam, focusing on the areas of Vietnam’s needs, such as infrastructure, agricultural-rural area development, hunger elimination and poverty alleviation, fighting climate change, and high-quality human resource development./.

VNF/NDO