President of the Australian Senate Sue Lines (R) and Ambassador Nguyen Tat Thanh (Photo: VNA) She expressed her delight at outstanding development steps of theAustralia-Vietnam Strategic Partnership, especially in economic cooperation, parliamentarydiplomacy, and people-to-people exchanges.
Lines affirmed she will continue supporting Australia’srelations with Vietnam as she did when she was Vice President of the Senate,stressing that the two countries still hold much potential to further developtheir ties.
The Senate President also said she is delighted at the cooperationbetween the two countries’ localities, especially the achievements in thecollaboration of her home state, Western Australia, with the Vietnamesesouthern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. She added that she is looking forward tothe opening of more direct flights between the two nations, especially withPerth, the capital of Western Australia.
For his part, Thanh noted with pleasure that two-way trade grew by nearly 40% in the first eight months of 2022, making Australia the seventh largest trading partner of Vietnamand Vietnam the 10th biggest trading partner of Australia for the first time.
He showed his hope that the Australia-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians’Group will soon be set up to coordinate in boosting parliamentary cooperation.
The two sides agreed to foster collaboration between the twoparliaments towards the celebration of the 50th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties next year.
Lines said she hopes to soon welcome the Vietnamese NationalAssembly's leaders to visit Australia and affirmed that she will consider visitingVietnam at an appropriate time./.
VNA
