Mexico City (VNA) – Vietnam wants to deepen its traditional friendship and cooperation with Mexico.

Newly-accredited Vietnamese Ambassador to Mexico Nguyen Hoai Duong made the remark while presenting a copy of his credentials to Director General of Protocol Carlos Lara Armienta and Director General for Asia-Pacific at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alfonso de Maria y Campos in Mexico City on November 21.

He affirmed that Vietnam attaches great importance to the role of Mexico in the region and the world.

The key tasks during his working tenure in Mexico are promoting high-level delegation exchanges and implementing bilateral cooperation mechanisms in political consultation between the two countries’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the joint committee on economic-trade-investment cooperation, and the joint committee on culture-education cooperation, Duong said.

Added to this is strengthening coordination at multilateral mechanisms of the United Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the Forum of East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC), for common benefits and peace, stability and development, he said.

The Ambassador hoped to receive support from Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to fulfil his missions.

Alfonso expressed his admiration for Vietnam’s accomplishments in building and developing the country as well as his sentiments for Vietnamese people.

He lauded the development in the two countries’ relations in recent years, especially positive outcomes of the bilateral meeting between President Tran Dai Quang and President Enrique Pena Nieto on the sidelines of the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting 2017 in Da Nang, Vietnam.

The two sides also recently held the first meeting of a joint committee on economic, trade and investment cooperation in Hanoi, he noted.

For his part, Carlos congratulated Vietnam on successfully hosting APEC Year 2017 and thanked the Vietnamese Government and people for their warm welcome at the APEC summit.

Two-way trade increased nearly ten fold to exceed 5 billion USD in 2016 from 531 million USD in 2007. Vietnam is the fifth biggest trade partner of Mexico in Asia-Pacific, while Mexico is Vietnam’s largest trader in Latin America-VNA