Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam has takenadvantage of the opportunity as the ASEAN Chair to become a bridge promoting intra-ASEAN connection as well as links between the bloc with its dialoguepartners, a Canadian expert has said.

In an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency, Jonathan Berkshire Miller, Director and co-founder of the Ottawa-based Council on InternationalPolicy, highly valued Vietnam's role in continuing to harmonise relations with China while striving to strengthen partnership within ASEAN and in the Indo-Pacific region as well.

Vietnam's principled and resolved leadership has made progress insettling thorny issues related to the East Sea, he stressed.

Miller, who is also a senior expert of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, highlighted Vietnam’s initiativesin changing the way it organises dialogues and important meetings during theyear the country assumes its role as Chair of ASEANwhen the COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging the world and geopolitical tensions in the regionare escalating.

Meanwhile, Luis Silva, a Canadian expert on government relations,expressed his optimism about the prospects of cooperation between ASEAN andCanada in the coming time.

In the context of the unpredictable developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadiangovernment is working to reduce dependence on the Chinese market, andtaking new measures to expand economic cooperation with other countries in EastAsia, he said.

According to the expert, Canada and four ASEANcountries, namely Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, are members of the Comprehensive andProgressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Canada and ASEAN are implementing a working plan under the Canada-ASEAN Joint Declaration on Trade and Investment,and considering the possibility of signing a free trade agreement, he said,noting that these show that both ASEAN and Canada want to deepen theircooperation.

The ASEAN-Canada dialogue partnership was established in 1977. In the frameworkof the ASEAN-Canada Ministerial Meeting heldonline on as part of the 53rd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM 53), the two sides discussed concrete measures to strengthen cooperation in political,social and cultural pillars.

Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne affirmed that as a nationin the Pacific, Canada attaches great importance to its growing relationshipwith all ASEAN member nations, and that his country and ASEAN can join hands tosolve global important issues and support peace and security, economic growthand sustainable development for all countries.

ASEAN is now Canada's sixth largest trading partner. Two-way trade betweenCanada and ASEAN reached 27.2 billion CAD (20.6 billion USD) in 2019. Investmentand trade activities of Canada in Southeast Asia have not only increasedsharply in volume, but also covered many areas, including oil and gas, mining,high technology, telecommunications, food processing, financial services, andaviation./.