Hanoi (VNA) - The upcoming official visit to Bulgaria from October 22 - 24 by General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee To Lam, accompanied by his spouse and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation, provides an opportunity for Vietnam to expand new cooperation space with Bulgaria in particular, and the whole Balkan region, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang told the press on the threshold of the trip.
Hang noted that the visit comes at a meaningful moment, as Vietnam and Bulgaria are celebrating 75 years of diplomatic relations. It marks the first visit by a General Secretary of the CPV since Bulgaria transitioned to a new political system in 1990.
Following the General Secretary’s official visit to Finland, the Bulgarian trip conveys a message of sincere friendship and the importance Vietnam places on its relations with long-standing partners and friends, who have offered valuable support to Vietnam’s past struggle for national independence as well as its current process of national development, she said.
As one of the first countries to establish diplomatic ties with Vietnam in 1950, Bulgaria has maintained a tradition of friendship and cooperation with the Southeast Asian country, built and nurtured over decades by generations of leaders and people from both sides. In August 1957, President Ho Chi Minh paid an official friendship visit to Bulgaria, laying a firm foundation for the development of bilateral relations. Bulgaria extended both material and spiritual support to Vietnam during its resistance wars and national defence. The Vietnamese people have not forgotten the image of thousands of Bulgarian students and people taking to the streets in protest against the war in Vietnam, Hang noted.
Landmarks of the relationship such as Vietnam-Bulgaria Hospital in former Thai Binh province and Vietnam-Bulgaria Kindergarten in Hanoi stand as heartfelt gifts from the Bulgarian people. Bulgaria also trained thousands of Vietnamese professionals at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, along with tens of thousands of skilled workers, forming a valuable human resource that has contributed significantly to Vietnam’s national construction and development process.
The upcoming visit is an opportunity for leaders of both countries to review the achievements of the bilateral relationship and set out strategic directions to elevate the traditional friendship between Vietnam and Bulgaria to a new level. This will focus particularly on areas in which Bulgaria has strengths and Vietnam has growing demand, including information technology, quantum technology, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, green transition, and biomedical sciences. At the same time, the visit aims to further consolidate a reliable bridge linking Bulgaria with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Vietnam with the European Union (EU).
Over the past 75 years, Vietnam–Bulgaria relations have witnessed a shared historical journey of cooperation in development, yielding positive results across almost every area of collaboration.
In politics and diplomacy, the two sides have regularly exchanged high-level delegations and maintained effective bilateral cooperation mechanisms, helping to build a foundation for deep political trust. Bilateral trade turnover has also recorded steady growth in recent years.
In education and training, the two countries have signed a cooperation programme for the 2025–2028 period and are exploring opportunities to expand collaboration in areas where Bulgaria has expertise such as information technology, cybersecurity, e-government, and public administration.
Other areas of cooperation such as defence, security, culture, and labour are also progressing with encouraging development steps.
The two sides are currently working on implementing joint scientific research initiatives and have established a bilateral committee for scientific and technological cooperation. This includes a focus on frontier fields such as biotechnology, ICT, digital transformation, AI, and green energy. These efforts promise to create new cooperation frameworks aligned with each country’s potential and needs, thereby making important contributions to national development.
Vietnam expects that the visit will open up new cooperation opportunities for trade and investment by enhancing market access for each other, ensuring effective implementation of the EU–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), and promoting early ratification of the EU–Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA) by the European Commission (EC). These steps would help to boost investment collaboration and increase bilateral trade turnover between Vietnam and Bulgaria, as well as between Vietnam and the EU.
Hang underlined that building on the traditional friendship between the two countries, the visit is also expected to enhance people-to-people exchange, and promote tourism, culture, and educational cooperation. There is hope for an increase in cultural and artistic events in both countries, following the success of previous initiatives such as the Bulgarian Rose Festival, the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture in Hanoi, and Vietnamese performances at the International Folk Festival in Burgas and the International Arts Festival in Sozopol. These activities have played a vital role in fostering mutual understanding between the two countries' people, said the Deputy FM.
Hang expressed her belief that with deep and sincere ties between the two nations, General Secretary Lam’s official visit to Bulgaria will open up promising new cooperation prospects that align with Vietnam’s strategic orientations in a new era, and are expected to yield positive outcomes for the benefit of both nations' people, contributing to peace, stability, cooperation, and development in each region and the world as well./.
