Sydney (VNA) – National Assembly Vice Chairwoman Nguꦯyen Thi Thanh held working sessions with top officials of Australia’s New South Wales state on September 6-7, helping to strengthen and deepen comprehensive strategic partnership between Vietnam and Australia.

Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Greg Piper highlighted the immense potential for collaboration between New South Wales and Vietnamese localities, expressing his confidence that the visit would foster cultural and economic exchanges between Vietnam and Australia, and specifically between Vietnamese cities and New South Wales in the near future. Thanh underscored New South Wales's pivotal role in expanding cooperation with Vietnamese localities, particularly in key areas. She noted that Ho Chi Minh City, a partner city of New South Wales, could become a pioneer in implementing the Vietnam-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership and Australia's Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040. The Vietnamese NA is committed to creating favourable conditions for Australian firms, including those from New South Wales, to invest and operate effectively, sustainably and stably in Vietnam, she said. The legislator proposed several areas for future cooperation, including trade promotion, information and technology sharing for mineral extraction, coal and liquefied natural gas, business support to leverage free trade agreements, logistics, clean energy, and low carbon emissions. She also recommended effective implementation of the joint declaration on practical actions to combat climate change. Thanh also suggested facilitating the exchange of delegations, including those from the New South Wales Legislative Assembly to the People's Councils of Vietnamese cities and provinces. In a meeting with Deputy President of the New South Wales Legislative Council Rodney John Roberts, Thanh expressed Vietnam's readiness to host delegations from the New South Wales Legislative Council to share experiences with the People's Councils of Vietnamese localities. She sought New South Wales’s expertise and technology in hi-tech agriculture, building value chains for agricultural products, food and beverages within global and regional supply chains, and collaboration in training and investment in Vietnam, particularly in the production of raw materials for pharmaceutical and supplementary food industries. On the occasion, she called on New South Wales authorities to create favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community living and working there, helping them serve as a bridge for the bilateral ties. Roberts, for his part, described people-to-people exchange as a cornerstone of the friendship bonds between the two countries. Agreeing with Thanh’s proposals, he underlined Vietnam's vast and diverse development potential and vowed to soon visit Vietnam in the near future. The same day, Thanh and New South Wales Minister of Trade and Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology, Building, and Corrections Anoulack Chanthivon discussed advancing collaboration in innovation, sci-tech, education, hydrogen energy, finance, investment funds and banking. Regarding education-training, Thanh requested New South Wales to increase scholarships for Vietnamese civil servants, especially those from localities. She also emphasised the need to foster professional exchanges in public management through training courses and workshops on urban management, smart city development and digital transformation; as well as steping up collaboration in vocational education, including the transfer of training courses and establishment of vocational training centres in Vietnam, to develop a quality workforce. New South Wales will continue to focus on investing in education and stays ready to consider cooperation programmes that align with Vietnam's needs, Chanthivon assured. Their discussions covered the priorities of Vietnam and New South Wales in the fields of energy, renewable energy, and just energy transition. They reviewed Vietnam's achievements in these areas and its commitment to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Chanthivon welcomed Vietnamese enterprises to invest in New South Wales and expressed his readiness to help them understand the local investment environment, policies and regulations to reinforce bilateral cooperation. In the afternoon, the Vietnamese delegation met with outstanding representatives of Vietnamese community in New South Wales./.