PM Pham Minh Chinh meets with Australia Senate President Sue Lines

The Vietnamese government leader expressed his pleasure at the strong, comprehensive, and substantive development of the Vietnam-Australia relationship, emphasing that the upgrade of the bilateral relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is a result of the efforts of both sides over more than 50 years of their diplomatic relations. He stressed that the upgrade opens a new chapter in the bilateral relationship, with higher political trust and broader and more extensive cooperation.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) shakes hands with President of the Australian Senate Sue Lines. (Photo: VNA)

Chinh thanked Australia for implementing many practical and effective cooperation projects that support Vietnam in various fields, including defence - security, capacity building, science and technology, innovation, and climate change; as well as for its support in training English language for Vietnamese officers, and assisting Vietnam in participating in United Nations peacekeeping activities.

He urged the two sides to proactively coordinate in concretising high-level agreements reached, towards further deepening cooperation to be commensurate with the framework of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

For her part, the Australian official affirmed Vietnam is a crucial partner of Australia, and that the Australian government and parliament highly prioritise relations with Vietnam in its foreign policy on the region.

The two countries share many similarities and have a high level of strategic trust, she stressed, adding that the bilateral relationship has come a long way to achieve such excellent results today.

These are foundations for the two countries to further intensify multifaceted cooperation in the future, meeting the demands and aspirations of the two peoples, Lines said.

The two sides agreed to continue promoting dialogue, sharing information, and enhancing mutual understanding and trust; deepen defence and security cooperation; and boost economic cooperation for greater effectiveness, focusing on fostering investment and trade promotion towards a 20-billion-USD trade turnover, and doubling bilateral investment within the next 2-3 years.

Participants at the reception (Photo: VNA)

The two countries will explore and enhance cooperation in new and promising areas such as green economy, digital economy, circular economy, digital transformation, science - technology and innovation, they said.

They also agreed to enhance people-to-people exchanges and cooperation between localities, contributing to strengthening mutual understanding between the two peoples.

The Australian Senate President affirmed that Australia is always attentive to and create favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in Australia. She acknowledged Vietnam’s proposal to ease visa issuance for Vietnamese citizens and students.

The two leaders noted that amid the increasingly complex and unpredictable situations in the region and the globe, with emerging new security challenges, Vietnam and Australia need to enhance consultation, share information, assess and coordinate policies, and work closely together in regional and international forum, thus positively contributing to building a peaceful, stable, cooperative, and prosperous Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean region, with ASEAN playing a central role.

Lines reaffirmed Australia's consistent stance on the East Sea issue, saying that her country supports Vietnam’s and ASEAN's principled stance on ensuring maritime and aviation security, safety, and freedom in the sea; and resolving disputes through peaceful measures on the basis of respect to international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).