Vietnam and Italy sign a joint statement on the establishment of bilateral strategic partnership on January 21, 2013 during Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's official visit to Italy (Photo: VNA) Growing political-diplomaticrelations
Since Vietnam and Italy set up their diplomatic relations onMarch 23, 1973, the two countries have enjoyed a rapidly growing political relationship.
Particularly, since they lifted their ties to a strategicpartnership in January, 2013, the two sides have actively promoted theirsubstantial and effective cooperation in all fields, from politics, diplomacyto economy, science, education, defence-security, environmental protection, andlocality-to-locality collaboration.
Vietnam and Italy have maintained many bilateral cooperationmechanisms such as the annual strategic dialogue at the deputy foreign ministeriallevel and the defence policy dialogue at the deputy ministerial level, as wellas the Joint Committee on Economic Cooperation and Joint Committee on Scienceand Technology Cooperation.
High-level delegation exchanges and meetings between the twocountries have been maintained. Most recently, in December 2022, Prime MinisterPham Minh Chinh met with his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni on thesidelines of the ASEAN-EU Summit in Brussels.
During the meeting, PM Chinh affirmed that Vietnam highlyvalues the relations with Italy, an important member of the EU and G7 as wellas one of the leading economic and development partners of Vietnam in the EU.He suggested that the two sides make full use of opportunities from theEU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) to raise two-way trade to 7 billion USDin the next 2-3 years.
During the COVID-19 pandemic period, Deputy Prime Minister andForeign Minister Pham Binh Minh had an online conversation in May 2020, whilePM Chinh and his counterpart Mario Draghi also met online in April 2022.
In high-level talks, Italy always affirmed its determinationto promote all-round ties with Vietnam, considering Vietnam as a priority fordeveloping ties in the Southeast Asian region.
In terms of defence cooperation, right after theestablishment of their strategic partnership, the two Ministries of Defencesigned a memorandum of understanding in this field, marking a new step forwardand creating a framework for bilateral defence ties. Over the years, the twocountries have promoted their partnership in all three aspects of defencepolicy, defence military, and defence industry.
Italy pledged to transfer the technology to manufacturemilitary and civil vessels to Vietnam and to share its experience in UNpeacekeeping operations.
The two countries have also been working together inprogrammes to train police officers, preserve heritage, and responding toclimate change.
They have completed negotiations on the Agreement on Extraditionand Transfer of Convicted Persons (2022), and the Agreement on Mutual LegalAssistance (2022).
The two sides have also coordinated with and support eachother at multilateral forums, while contributing their positive voice inensuring peace, stability, maritime and aviation security and freedom andrespecting international law.
Trade-investmentcooperation remains bright spot
In recent years, trade and investment cooperation has been abright spot in the bilateral relations thanks to joint efforts of both sides.
Since 2010, two-way trade has doubled. Vietnam has been thelargest trade partner of Italy among the ASEAN countries, while Italy is the thirdbiggest partner of Vietnam among the EU members.
Two-way trade rose 21% in 2021 to 5.6 billion USD in 2021,and 11% in 2022 to 6.2 billion USD. The figure hit 3.1 billion USD in the firsthalf of this year.
Vietnam remains one of the 10 emerging countries prioritisedfor trade and investment cooperation development by Italy until 2030. The twocountries have created favourable conditions for businesses of each other tocooperate in areas of Italy’s strength and Vietnam’s demand such as mechanicalengineering, infrastructure, garment and textiles, footwear, wood processing,supporting industries, building materials, oil and gas, renewable energy, andfood processing.
Vietnam and Italy share interest in many areas such asclimate change, infrastructure, agriculture, food security, and human resourcesdevelopment.
In recent meetings, Vietnam asked Italy to ratify theEU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement, support the removal of the EC’s “yellowcard” on Vietnamese seafood export, and create a firm legal foundation and afavourable business and investment environment for the business communities ofthe two countries.
Scooter production at Piaggio Vietnam's factory at Binh Xuyen industrial park in Vinh Phuc province (Photo: VNA) Many large-scale firms of Italy have actively operated inVietnam, mostly in the manufacturing sector. They include Bonfiglioli, Piaggio,Danieli Officina, Fiat Iveco, Datalogic and Ariston. Particularly, Danieli'ssteelmaking equipment has been used in over 10 projects in Vietnam, includingVietnam-Italy steel factory and Phu My steel factory.
Regarding development cooperation, Italy has continued toprovide ODA to Vietnam, focusing on areas of vocational training and humanresources development, environmental protection and water resource management, small- and medium-sized enterprise support, health care, and scientific research.
Promoting partnershipin culture, education, science-technology, tourism
In terms of culture, the two sides have regularly organisedcultural weeks and months in Italy and Vietnam on special occasions.
Between 2003 and 2013, the Italian Government coordinatedwith UNESCO to support Vietnam in restoring the My Son relic site at a totalcost of 1.5 million USD. Vietnam licenced the establishment of the ItalianHouse in Hanoi in 2019 and the Italian Cultural Institute in the city in 2022.
Various cultural activities have also been organised betweenthe two countries in 2023.
In terms of healthcare collaboration, during the COVID-19pandemic, Vietnam provided Italy with more than 300,000 masks and Italy supplied2.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Vietnam.
Regarding education-training cooperation, the actionprogramme on bilateral education cooperation in the 2019-2022 period focused ondeveloping language collaboration, with the Italian side providing teachingequipment and scholarships to Vietnam. The two sides have encourageduniversities and education facilities to cooperate with each other, while Italyhas provided 1.27 million EUR (1.40 million USD) to the Hue University ofMedicine and Pharmacy to enhance its training and research capacity.
The two sides organised a Vietnam-Italy education forum in2014, and plan to hold the third edition of the event in 2023.
The Joint Committee on Science and Technology Cooperationwas formed in November 1998 with seven meetings held. The two sides approvedseven cooperation programmes on science and technology cooperation with morethan 90 joint projects.
In 2023, leaders of the Ministry of Science and Technologyplan to visit Italy and co-chair the eighth meeting of the Joint Committee onScience and Technology.
In the 2021-2023 period, the two sides have implemented 11joint projects in different areas.
As for tourism, the number of Italian visitors to Vietnamincreased about 15% each year in the 2015-2019 period.
In 2019, Vietnam welcomed 70.8 million Italian tourists.
In terms of local cooperation, currently 10 twinningrelationships have been set up among localities of both sides.
Currently, about 50,000 Vietnamese people are living andworking in Italy.
According to Vietnamese Ambassador to Italy Duong Hai Hung,2023 is an important year in the Vietnam-Italy relations as the two sides arecelebrating the 50th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic tiesand 10 years of the Vietnam-Italy strategic partnership.
President Vo Van Thuong’s visit is taking place in thecontext that the friendship and strategic partnership between the twocountries are developing best ever in all fields both bilaterally andmultilaterally, he said./.
VNA
