Vietnamese Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan (L) and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. (Photo: VNA) Zagreb (VNA)ꦍ – Vietnamese Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan held talks with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković in Zagreb on October 11, during which the latter welcomed the Vietnamese delegation and affirmed that their ongoing visit was an important hallmark in the history oftraditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation between the two countries.
The two sides informed each other about the socio-economic development situation in each country and spoke highly of fine and reliable relations in politics and diplomacy between Vietnam and Croatia, and agreed to increase the exchange of delegations via all State and parliament channels and between ministries, sectors and localities. Xuan conveyed the regards and invitation from Vietnamese PM Pham Minh Chinh to Plenković to pay an official visit to Vietnam at an appropriate time and the latter accepted the invitation with pleasure.The leaders reached consensus on measures to improvethe efficiency of bilateral economic-trade-investment ties, includingconsidering the establishment of the inter-governmental cooperation mechanism,and launching projects in promising areas such as maritime, transport, lightindustry, clean energy, information technology and innovation while tapping newopportunities brought about by the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) andthe EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA), toward lifting two-waytrade to 200 million USD by 2025.
On this occasion, Xuan thanked Croatia for early ratifying the EVIPA and suggested Croatia prompt other EU member states to soon approve the deal and urge the EuropeanCommission to lift its “yellow card” warning on Vietnam’s seafood.
The two sides pledged to boost seaportcooperation to become hubs for goods transshipments between ASEAN and Europe, aswell as expanding partnership in education-training, labour, culture, sports andtourism as Croatia is to join the Schengen visa-free zone and eurozone fromJanuary 1, 2023.
They consented to review bilateral cooperationagreements to create a legal corridor for increased cooperation between the twonations in various areas.
On regional and global issues, the host and guestshared a view that issues must be handled by peaceful means on the basis ofrespecting basic principles of international law, especially the principle of respectingindependence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries.
Xuan took this occasion to thank the Croatian Government for creating favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in the country to stabilise their lives, helping to enhance mutual understanding between the two nations and their economic, cultural, tourism and education exchanges. She also thanked the Croatian Government for its donation of 60,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam in late 2021.
ꦰ In the afternoon of the same day, the VietnameseVice President left Croatia for Kazakhstan to attend the sixth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures inAsia (CICA) and have bilateral activities in the country./.
