Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) and President of the Philippines Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos (Photo: VNA) Phnom Penh (VNA) – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met President of the Philippines Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos on November 10 on the occasion of they both attending the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
PM Chinh congratulated the Philippine Government and people on their achievements over the past years, especially in controlling COVID-19 and maintaining high economic growth.
President Marcos expressed his belief that Vietnam will score greater successes in renewal process and global integration. He also welcomed the upcoming Philippine visit by Vietnamese National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue.
The two leaders expressed their satisfaction about the growing bilateral strategic partnership despite COVID-19 and spoke highly of the effective maintenance of high-level exchanges and meetings. Two-way trade hit an all-time high of 6.8 billion USD last year and nearly 5.4 billion USD in the first eight months of this year.
Sharing the view that there remains ample room to further deepen the bilateral strategic partnership, both sides agreed to promote all-level visits. PM Chinh suggested that the two sides coordinate to make the best preparation for the upcoming Philippine visit by NA Chairman Hue.
He proposed the two countries enhance trade, including in rice, while considering the removal of unnecessary barriers to create better investment environment for each other's companies. He also took the occasion to ask the Philippines to continue offering support to the Vietnamese community to live and do business there.
Agreeing with PM Chinh’s proposals, President Marcos urged both sides to foster economic-trade-investment, national defence-security cooperation, especially maritime, education-training, labour, culture, tourism, locality-to-locality and people-to-people links. He called for attention to sharing experience in energy security, climate change response, digital transformation, hi-tech and offering mutual support to fight national disasters and epidemics.
On global and regional issues of shared concern, the two leaders agreed that Vietnam and the Philippines need to strengthen consultation and support each other at regional and global organisations, especially at ASEAN and the United Nations.
They vowed to support each other and maintain the unity and centrality of ASEAN.
Regarding the East Sea issue, they pledged to uphold the principles of settling disputes by peaceful means in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982).
On the occasion, President Marcos invited PM Chinh to pay an official visit to the Philippines soon at a time convenient for both sides./.
