Hanoi (VNA) – National AssemblyChairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan has affirmed that her visit to Russia fromDecember 8-11 aims to further deepen the comprehensive strategic partnershipand parliamentary cooperation between the two countries.
 
In an interview granted to the newspaper of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the toplegislator of Vietnam said she plans to hold talks and meet with Russian leaders,focusing on the bilateral relations across fields of politics-diplomacy, economics–trade, defence-security, science-technology, education-training, and otherpotential cooperation areas as well.

Ngan highlighted that the comprehensive strategic partnership betweenVietnam and Russia has recorded fruitful development in all fields.

Regular mutual visits by leaders and officials at all levels have helped stronglypromote the bilateral cooperation, she said, adding that the two sides have alsoclosely coordinated and supported each other at regional and international multilateralforums.

The Vietnamese NA, the State Duma of Russia, the FederationCouncil of Russia andthe two Governments have built legal corridors, creating favourable businessenvironment for economic-trade-investment cooperation between the two sides,for the interests and prosperity of both nations, Ngan stressed.

She noted that the twosides’ legislatures signed an agreement on establishing the Committeefor Inter-parliamentary cooperation in 2018 – the bilateral parliamentarycooperation mechanism at the highest level and the only one between the VietnameseNA and a legislative body of a country.

Economic-trade-investment collaboration between Vietnam and Russiahave seen rapid development recently, with two-way trade hitting 4.5 billionUSD in 2018, and 3.4 billion UDS in the first nine months of 2019.

The participation of both sides in the Vietnam-Eurasian Economic UnionFree Trade Agreement has contributed to further strengthening theirtrade and investment cooperation, Ngan said.

Energy cooperation is one of the traditional and effective cooperation areas betweenVietnam and Russia, Ngan noted, adding that the two sides also actively expand cooperationin projects related to nuclear technology, urban transport, digital technologyand economy, e-Government, renewable energy, agriculture, and medicine.

Regarding educational cooperation, as many as 5,000 Vietnamese students arepursuing their study in Russia. In 2018, the number of Russian touristsvisiting Vietnam hit a record of over 600,000, making Russia the sixth biggestsource market of Vietnam’s tourism.

Culture and tourism collaboration and people-to-people exchange between the twosides have been promoted, helping Vietnamese and Russian people enhance mutualunderstanding of history and culture of each country.

The legislator also mentioned the constantly growing cooperation among Vietnameseand Russian localities, affirming Vietnamese NA’s commitment to providing thegreatest support for the two countries’ localities to implement specificcooperative projects.

To further strengthen the bilateral relations, Ngan said the two sides need to continuemaintaining the exchange of visits at all levels, and work closely to monitorand accelerate the implementation of signed cooperation agreements andstrategic projects, especially those related to defence-security, energy,technology, education-training and tourism.

They should also increase meetings and consultations, and support each other atregional and global multilateral forums, such as the Inter-ParliamentaryUnion (IPU),the Asia-PacificParliamentary Forum (APPF), the Meeting of Speakers of Eurasian Countries’Parliaments, the Asia-Europe Women's Forum,and others.

The annual meeting of theCommittee for Inter-parliamentary cooperation between  theVietnamese NA, the State Duma of Russia should be maintained,towards promoting the comprehensive strategic partnership between the twonations in general, and the parliamentary cooperation in particular, Ngan said.

According to Ngan, she will join Chairman of theState Duma of Russia V.Volodin in attending the first meeting of the Committee forInter-parliamentary cooperation between the two legislative bodies.

The meeting will spotlight the importanceof parliamentary cooperation in expanding the Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategicpartnership, Ngan said./.