Beijing (VNA) – Vietnam pursues a consistent policy🍸 of attaching special importance to its friendship with China and giving it a top priority in the country’s foreign policy, affirmed Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

PM Phuc made the confirmation at his meeting with Chinese Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping in Beijing on September 13 during his official visit to China. He stated that Vietnam and China are embarking on an important phase of the renewal and open-door process so ensuring a peaceful, stable and cooperative environment for national construction and development are their common interests. Fostering the time-honoured friendship and developing the relations in a stable, healthy and sustainable manner is crucial for respective countries’ national construction and development and beneficial to peace, stability and development in the region and the world at large, he added, mentioning to the responsibility of generations of Party and State leaders in the work. The Vietnamese leader also proposed several major orientations to further tighten the relations between the two Parties and countries, stressing the extreme importance to strengthening political trust and boosting results-oriented cooperation. He asked both sides to soundly manage disputes at sea, comply with agreements and common perceptions of their high-level leaders, effectively implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and soon sign a Code of Conduct in the East Sea, in order to help stabilise the situation and contribute to peace, cooperation and development in the region. Regarding economic and trade ties, PM Phuc confirmed that Vietnam treasures its mutually beneficial cooperation with China and welcomes Chinese investors in fields meeting respective development requirements. He requested the two countries’ ministries and agencies to settle difficulties to develop the bilateral economic and trade relations effectively and sustainably. For his part, Chinese Party General Secretary and President Xi said PM Phuc’s visit is significant for the consolidation and enhancement of the friendly neighbourliness and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries. He expressed his belief that Vietnam will gain greater achievements in the process of reform and nation building. The Party, Government and people of China always attach importance to developing relations with Vietnam, he affirmed, adding that China stands ready to work together with the country to grasp the development trend of the bilateral ties, maintain visits and high-level meetings, and step up pragmatic cooperation across fields as well as people-to-people exchanges. At the same time, China will join hands with Vietnam to manage their differences and satisfactorily solve disputes, thus deepening the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in a stable and sustainable fashion, he said. China also sticks importance to boosting mutually beneficial collaboration with Vietnam, he said, suggesting the two sides carry forward the role played by the China-Vietnam Steering Committee on Bilateral Cooperation in coordinating and forging the affiliation. It is necessary for the two sides to ramp up their connectivity in the development strategy within the frameworks of the “One Belt, One Road” and “Two Corridors, One Economic Belt.” They should beef up collaboration in production and tourism, soon build joint border economic zones and hasten the implementation of key cooperation project, he proposed. The host promised that China will encourage businesses having high capacity and using high technology to invest in Vietnam, and will actively partner with the country in addressing problems hindering bilateral economic and trade ties. As part of his official visit to China, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc met with Wang Jiarui, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference on the same day. He called on the Chinese official to make more contributions to consolidating and enhancing the time-honoured friendship between social organisations and people of the two countries, helping push forward the bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. The same day, he had a meeting with the staff of the Vietnamese Embassy in China and representatives of the Vietnamese community in Beijing.-VNA