Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese Prime Minister NguyenXuan Phuc and US President Donald Trump expressed their satisfaction at theincreasingly substantive developments in the countries’ relations during theirmeeting in Hanoi on February 27.

PM Phuc welcomed President Trump and hisentourage on their visit to Vietnam and lauded the significance of the secondsummit between the US and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) inpromoting the denuclearisation and making sustainable peace on the KoreanPeninsula. He also applauded the US and the DPRK’s choosing of Vietnam as thevenue for their important summit.

The leader affirmed that Vietnam always attachesimportance to the comprehensive partnership with the US in its foreign policyof independence, self-reliance, multilateralisation and diversification offoreign relations, and active integration into the world in the principle ofrespecting each other’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity andpolitical regimes.

President Trump expressed his delight at meetingPM Phuc and visiting Vietnam again. He thanked Vietnam for its consideratesupport for the US-DPRK summit despite the short period of time for preparation.

At the meeting, the two sides shared the viewthat bilateral relations have been growing substantively in many fields, frompolitics-diplomacy, security-defence, education-training, to the settlement ofwar consequences. Notably, bilateral trade topped 60 billion USD in 2018 withthe US’s exports to Vietnam surging by 46 percent, making the Southeast Asiannation one of the fastest growing markets of the US.

To promote the economic-trade upward trend, theyagreed to keep implementing existing cooperation mechanisms like the Vietnam-USBilateral Trade Agreement and the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement.

The two sides will also continue discussing thepossibility of upgrading the framework of bilateral trade-investment ties tomatch the development of their economic-trade relations and the nature of thecomprehensive partnership, they added.

President Trump highly valued Vietnam’s activesettlement of some prioritised trade issues, affirming his strong support forcooperation in this field for the sake of the two peoples.

The leaders also exchanged views on someregional issues of shared concern. They voiced their support for the peacefulsettlement of disputes in the East Sea in accordance with international law,including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the respectfor all diplomatic and legal processes, the effective and full implementationof the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, and the earlysigning of a Code of Conduct in the waters.-VNA