Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Petr Fiala's visit to Vietnam from April 20-22 is expected to help bring the nations’ cooperation to new heights, particularly in economy-trade-investment and defence, affirmed Vietnamese Ambassador to the European country Thai Xuan Dung.

In an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency at the outset of the trip, the diplomat said the bilateral traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation have been continuously consolidated and developed over the past seven decades across all spheres, including politics, diplomacy, economy, defence-security, culture, education-training, science-technology, and locality-to-locality cooperation.

According to Dung, after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sides’ foreign political relations have been boosted. The Czech PM’s April visit – the first high-level between the nations since 2019 – takes place in the context that the Czech Republic is promoting its Indo-Pacific strategy, in which Vietnam is considered an important partner.

The ambassador noted that the European nation places Vietnam among its most important markets outside the EU in terms of commerce and investment.

According to the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade, trade turnover with Vietnam exceeded 2.34 billion USD last year, up 12.5% year-on-year. Statistics from the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency, meanwhile, showed that as of February this year, the Czech Republic had poured 92.38 million USD on 41 projects in Vietnam, ranked 50th out of the 142 countries and territories investing in the Southeast Asian nation.

Dung said the Vietnamese and Czech economies complement each other, with the sides already agreeing to further team up in the various fields of energy-renewable energy, automobile, mining industry, environmental research cooperation, wastewater treatment, petrochemical industry, and pilot training, among others.

He expressed his belief that 20 leading Czech enterprises accompanying PM Fiala on his trip to Vietnam will bring new vitality to economic, trade and investment cooperation between the countries. The two sides will identify areas to be promoted and implemented, the diplomat said.

Stepping up education – training collaboration is another main item on the agenda of the visit, stressed Dung. Specifically, the two sides will sign a Letter of Intent on educational cooperation, which is the first step to promote, negotiate and sign a cooperation agreement in the area, creating a favourable legal framework and basis for higher number of scholarships granted for Vietnamese students and for the nations’ exchange of lecturers and joint work in research and teaching./.