Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung (Photo: VNA) Both sides agreed that despite impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, the two countries have maintained high-level meetings and exchanges as well as bilateralcooperation mechanisms in various forms. They particularly took note that in the past twomonths, both sides coordinated in organising the Vietnam visit by General Secretaryof the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and President of Laos ThonglounSisoulith in June and President Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s visit to Laos in earlyAugust.
They acknowleged the deepened defence and security partnership,as well as growing economic, trade and investment cooperation, with two-waytrade reaching 764.5 million USD in the first seven months of this year, ayear-on-year rise of 34.8 million USD.
Bilateral collaboration in other fields such as transport,education-training, culture-society and people-to-people exchange has also beenpromoted, they noted.
The two Deputy FMs agreed on a number of measures toincrease the role of the two Foreign Ministries in fostering the bilateralpartnership of the two countries, especially in speeding up the implementation of signed agreements,enhancing the efficiency of delegation exchanges and optimising internationalresources for socio-economic development in each country.
They also discussed a plan to hold the Vietnam-Laos,Laos-Vietnam Friendship and Solidarity Year 2022 to mark the 60th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties and 45 years of the Vietnam-LaosTreaty of Friendship and Amity, considering it a chance to strengthencommunications and education on the tradition of the special friendship betweenthe two countries to people of both sides, especially the youth.
Regarding international and regional issues of mutualconcern, the two sides noted that the world and regional situation hascontinued to see complicated and unpredictable developments. They stressed theneed to continue collaborating and supporting each other at regional andinternational forums, especially within the UN, ASEAN and sub-regionalcooperation mechanisms and in matters of strategic significance related topeace and stability in the region and security and development in each country,including the East Sea issue.
They pledged to continue working closely together to dealwith COVID-19, promote access to vaccine and the transfer of vaccineproduction technology as well as COVID-19 treatment medicines in a fair andeffective manner.
Regarding cooperation between the two Foreign Ministries, bothsides concurred to maintain and promote the effectiveness of consultationmechanisms at ministerial and deputy ministerial levels, while regularlystrengthening exchanges among agencies of the two ministries, especially in thefields of personnel training, strategic research, economic diplomacy,international law, consular affairs, and border affairs.
They agreed to organise the next political consultationin 2022./.
VNA
