Hanoi (VNA) - National Assembly (NA) Chairman Tran Thanh Man, accompanied by his spouse and a high-ranking delegation of the NA, has successfully concluded a working trip to attend the 150th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU-150) and pay official visits to Uzbekistan and Armenia.
The working trip, marking Man’s first multilateral diplomatic activity in 2025, reflected Vietnam’s foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, multilateralisation, and diversification of external ties.
Bilaterally, the visits to Armenia and Uzbekistan held profound political significance, demonstrating Vietnam’s appreciation for its traditional friendship with these countries and its desire to enhance political trust, laying a foundation for expanding cooperation across various fields, elevating Vietnam’s relations with both nations to new heights.
Social justice, progress - ultimate metric of development
Held in Tashkent for the first time in its 136-year history, IPU-150 was a milestone for Uzbekistan. Under Man’s leadership, the Vietnamese delegation enhanced the country’s image as a proactive and responsible nation promoting parliamentary cooperation for global goals of peace, stability, sustainable development, and social justice.
Man’s keynote speech at the plenary session left a profound impact, garnering enthusiastic support from international delegates. He underlined Vietnam’s commitment to sustainable development and social justice, asserting that “people must be placed at the centre,” “sustainable development must go hand in hand with social progress and fairness,” and that “social justice and progress should be the ultimate metric of development”.
He called on all parliamentarians and nations to take stronger actions and work together to build a just, prosperous, and sustainable world.
IPU Secretary-General Martin Chungong was impressed by Man’s speech, particularly the concrete examples regarding Vietnam’s policies to improve people's livelihoods.
Further strengthening traditional friendship
The official visits to Armenia and Uzbekistan marked the first by a top Vietnamese legislator and the highest by a Vietnamese leader since the countries established diplomatic ties in 1992.
Leaders agreed on the need to enhance all-level exchanges across Party, State, Government, parliamentary and people-to-people exchange channels. They discussed measures to boost economic, trade, and investment cooperation, including increasing transport connectivity, developing multimodal logistics to facilitate market access in each country and the broader region. They also look forward to fine-tuning the legal framework to offer maximum support to businesses in such key sectors as healthcare, apparel, energy - oil & gas, agricultural processing, and aquaculture.
On parliamentary ties, they vowed to enhance high-level exchanges among leaders, parliamentary bodies, friendship parliamentary groups, including young, women and individual parliamentarians. They also stressed the importance of fostering information and experience exchange between specialised committees and lawmakers, particularly in lawmaking and supervision.
On the occasion, the Vietnamese NA announced the establishment of friendship parliamentary groups with Armenia and Uzbekistan. The visits also witnessed the signing of cooperation agreements between the Vietnamese NA and its Armenian and Uzbek counterparts, plus additional cooperation documents across various fields.
Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Dang Minh Khoi, who is also in charge of Armenia and Uzbekistan, hailed the visits’ success. The Vietnam-Armenia and Vietnam-Uzbekistan business dialogues, attended by numerous businesses and leaders, are set to turn potential into concrete projects.
NA Secretary-General and Chairman of the NA Office Le Quang Trung noted that Man had completed a productive and substantive working agenda, which injected a "new breath" into these already strong friendships, paving the way for a more comprehensive and effective phase of cooperation aligned with their current development goals./.
