Hanoi (VNA) – The friendship and cooperationbetween Vietnam and Malaysia has been developing fruitfully, contributing to benefitingtheir people, and promoting peace; stability and prosperity in the region andthe world, a Vietnamese official has said.

In an exclusive interview to Vietnam News Agency on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of Vietnam-Malaysia diplomatic ties, Vietnamese Ambassador toMalaysia Le Quy Quynh affirmed the two countries are enjoying a strongdevelopment in their bilateral relations across fields, from politics-diplomacy,defence-security, the economy, to culture exchange.

Since the two nations’ leaders agreed to upgrade the relations to StrategicPartnership during then Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to Malaysia inAugust 2015, Vietnam and Malaysia have witnessed leaps in bilateral diplomaticties on the basis of mutual trust, he stated.

The two sides have regularly maintained the exchangeof high-level delegations through all channels of party, state, government and parliament as well as people-to-people exchange.

Leaders of both nations have always paid due attention to promoting andmaintaining cooperation mechanisms.

To concretise the Joint Statement on the framework for the Vietnam-Malaysia StrategicPartnership, the first Vietnam-Malaysia Senior Officials' StrategicDialogue took place in Hanoi in April 2016.

The bilateral defence-security bond has also seen rapid expansion, which resultedfrom many visits of officials from the two countries’ defence ministries,including those made by Vietnamese defence Minister Ngo Xuan Lich in October2016 and by Chief of the General Staff and Deputy Defence Minister Phan VanGiang to Malaysia in March 2018.

The two countries have also effectively cooperated in education and tourism.Many Vietnamese students have received scholarships to pursue training coursesin Malaysia. Malaysia is among the top ten biggest Asian tourism markets of Vietnam, withabout 400,000 Malaysians visiting Vietnam in 2017.

Quynh stressed that trade and investment between Vietnam and Malaysia is one ofthe bright spots in their bilateral relations, affirming that there is greatpotential for the two sides to boost links in this field.

Malaysia is the eighth largest trade partner of Vietnam,while Vietnam is the 12th biggest trade partners of Malaysia. Two-waytrade in 2017 hit 10.068 billion USD, up 19.06 percent year-on-year.  The two countries are striving to lift theirtrade to 15 billion USD by 2020 under the Action Plan for 2017-2019.

Regarding investment, Malaysia ranks seventh among 125 countries andterritories investing in Vietnam. By the end of December 2017, Malaysia hasnearly 600 investment projects worth 12.178 billion USD.

To further promote their trade and investment bond, the two sides launched theMalaysia-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce in Malaysia in January 2017, which worksto connect enterprises of the two countries, thus creating more business andinvestment opportunities between the two sides.

In term of multilateral cooperation, the two countries are member of key cooperationmechanisms such ASEAN, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, theUnited Nations, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-PacificPartnership (CPTPP), Quynh said.

They shared viewpoints in many issues such as the central role played by ASEANin the regional security architecture, the full and effective implementation ofthe Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and thenecessity to accelerate the early signing of the Code of Conductin the East Sea (COC), he added.

In a recent ceremony held by the Embassy to celebrate the 45th foundinganniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, the Malaysian side applaudedfruitful achievements in the bilateral relations, expressing the belief that therelationship will be strengthened in the time ahead, for the sake of the two countries’people as well as for peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world,Quynh said.-VNA