Vienna (VNA) – President Vo Van Thuong, his spouse,and the high-ranking delegation of Vietnam arrived at Vienna InternationalAirport on July 23 afternoon (local time), starting an official visit to Austriaat the invitation of Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen.

Austria is the first destination of the Vietnamese State leader’stour of Europe which also includes a State visit to Italy and a trip to theHoly See. This is also his first visit to Austria as the President of Vietnam.

Later the same day, President Thuong received Prof. Dr Alfred Gerstl, Chairman of the Austria - Vietnam FriendshipAssociation, and other Austrian friends of Vietnam.

The leader congratulated the association, set up in 1973, onits recent successful congress and Gerstl on his election as its chairman. He alsoappreciated former Chairman Peter Jankovich’s contributions to Vietnam over halfa century.

President Thuong highly valued the association’s coordinationto organise many friendship exchanges to help strengthen mutual understandingand support between the two peoples.

Thanking Gerstl and other Austrian friends for theirdedication to the bilateral ties, he expressed his belief that Gerstlwill further contribute to the Vietnam-Austria relations and friendship.

For his part, Gerstl said Vietnam plays an important role inAustria’s foreign policy, especially in terms of trade and investment, notingthat many Austrian businesses are operating in the Southeast Asian nation.

He voiced his delight at Vietnam’s attainments in economicdevelopment and also spoke highly of bilateral coordination and exchanges inculture and arts.

President Thuong affirmed that Vietnam always treasures andwishes to promote the friendship and multilfaceted cooperation with Austria,including via activities of the Austria - Vietnam and Vietnam - Austria friendshipassociations.

He said he believes in the next 50 years, the two sides willbring into play the achievements they have obtained to build up theirfriendship and cooperation.

Also on July 23 afternoon, President Thuong had a meetingwith Vietnamese Ambassador to Austria Nguyen Trung Kien and other ambassadorsof Vietnam to the countries bordering Austria, namely Germany, Belgium, theCzech Republic, Switzerland, Hungary, and Slovakia.

He praised efforts by the ambassadors and the Vietnameseembassies in the European countries to comprehensively and fruitfully carry out keydiplomatic tasks, helping improve the homeland’s stature in the internationalcommunity and reinforce Vietnam’s relations with the EU and European countries.

He asked them to further step up strategic forecasting andresearch while continually renewing their way of thinking to keep up with new trends and submit proposals to the Party and State. They were also told to maximise the synergy of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy; comprehensively carryout the tasks of politics, economic diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, foreignservice information, and community affairs; and further intensify all-round partnershipswith the countries.

Stressing that Vietnamese people in Europe form a largecommunity, the President demanded the representative bodies of Vietnam to pay greater attention to and implement overseas Vietnamese-related tasks more extensivelyand proactively.

The same day, the State leader had a meeting withrepresentatives of the Vietnamese community in Austria and the Union ofVietnamese People Associations in Europe, and visited the Vietnamese Embassy in Austria./.