Yerevan (VNA)🦩 – National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man, his spouse Nguyen Thi Thanh Nga and a high-ranking delegation of the Vietnamese NA wrapped up their official visit to Armenia and left Yerevan on April 5 morning (local time) for Uzbekistan where they will attend the 150th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU-150) and pay an official visit to the country.

The delegation was seen off at Zvartnots International Airport by Chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations Sargis Khandanyan; Ambassador of Armenia to Vietnam Suren Baghdasaryan; and leaders of the Department for Foreign Affairs and Protocol Department of the Armenian NA. NA Chairman Man is the first high-ranking Vietnamese leader to visit Armenia since the two countries established diplomatic relations. During the visit, he met with President Vahagn Khachaturyan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and held talks with President of the NA Alen Simonyan. During the talks and meetings, in a sincere and open atmosphere, the leaders of the two countries expressed their delight at the positive development in Vietnam-Armenia relations in many fields, and highly appreciated the positive growth momentum of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries, especially in recent years after the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) took effect in 2016.

Believing that the potential for cooperation is still very huge, the leaders of the two countries agreed to further promote economic and trade cooperation, creating favourable conditions for their businesses to learn about each other's markets, especially for Vietnamese agricultural, aquatic and seafood products entering the Armenian market, while paying attention to Armenian export products such as wine, processed foods and metals. The two sides consented to promote cooperation in new areas such as science and technology, innovation, digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) and green transformation.

Regarding cooperation between the two legislatures, Man and Simonyan agreed to increase the exchange of high-level delegations of NA leaders and cooperation activities between NA agencies, the Friendship Parliamentarians' Group, Young Parliamentarians' Group, Women Parliamentarians' Group, and NA deputies of the two countries.

The two sides concurred to strengthen cooperation, information exchange and experience sharing between specialised committees and legislators in parliamentary activities, especially in the fields of legislation and supervision; strengthening supervision and urging the effective implementation of bilateral and multilateral cooperation agreements that the two governments have signed or participated in, especially agreements that help promote economic and trade cooperation.

During the trip, the two top legislators signed the first-ever Cooperation Agreement between the Vietnamese and Armenian parliaments, creating a legal framework for enhancing cooperation between the two legislative bodies in the coming time.

In the capital of Yerevan, NA Chairman Man received the Chairman of the Armenia-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentary Group; attended a Vietnam-Armenia business forum; and visited a number of educational, cultural, and technological establishments.

With practical activities, the NA Chairman’s official visit to Armenia was a great success, contributing to opening a new page for parliamentary cooperation and creating momentum to expand bilateral cooperation in various fields, for the benefit of the people of the two countries./