Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Nguyen Quoc Dung grants an interview to the Vietnam News Agency. (Photo: VNA) Inan interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency, he noted that since the twocountries established their comprehensive partnership in 2013, bilateralrelations have enjoyed breakthrough progress, generating many benefits for bothpeoples and contributing to peace, cooperation, and development in the regionand the world.
Aside from the fruitful cooperation in war aftermathsettlement, their trade has surged by four folds to more than 130 billion USD in2022 from 30 billion USD in 2013. The US’s direct investment in Vietnam hasapproximated 12 billion USD as of 2023, and most major enterprises of the NorthAmerican country is now present in the Southeast Asian nation.
About1 million Vietnamese and US people travel between the two countries every year.There are nearly 30,000 Vietnamese students in the US at present. Besides,Vietnamese enterprises have also begun investing in the US, and the biggestamong them is VinFast which is building an electric vehicle plant in NorthCarolina, Dung said.
During US President Joe Biden’s official visit to Vietnam in September, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and the US leaderagreed to upgrade the countries’ relations to a comprehensive strategic partnershipfor peace, cooperation, and sustainable development.
This important milestone has heralded a new periodwith an open framework and a new impetus for bilateral ties in multiplespheres, particularly economy - trade, science - technology, andpeople-to-people exchanges, the ambassador went on.
The joint statement on the comprehensive strategic partnershipidentified 10 main cooperation pillars, along with the targets, aspirations,and commitments of both sides, he said, perceiving that the first to bedone is to disseminate the content and spirit of these agreements so that notonly the Government or the National Assembly but localities, businesses, andpeople in both countries also understand, join in the implementation, consider cooperationpossibility, seek suitable partners, and build cooperation plans.
He noted relevant agencies of Vietnam and the USare working together to devise concrete plans and measures while theirlocalities and enterprises are also starting to increase mutual visits andmeetings to explore cooperation chances.
To properly realise the joint statement, Dung held that itis necessary to have a strong coordination mechanism, and periodically reviewand accelerate the implementation of agreements, including identifyingbottlenecks to devise solutions.
Shortly after the upgrade of bilateral ties, Prime MinisterPham Minh Chinh paid a working visit to the US and attended the high-level weekof the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September. In November, President Vo Van Thuong took part in the APEC EconomicLeaders’ Week in San Francisco at the invitation of US President Biden.
During their trips, the diplomat said, PM Chinhand President Thuong had meetings with leaders of the US administration,Congress, scholars, and businesses, as well as representatives of the Vietnamesecommunity there. At those events, the Vietnamese leaders strongly affirmed thecountry’s determination to effectively implement the comprehensive strategicpartnership for the sake of both sides, along with the region and the world. Thisattracted attention and broad support from the US society for the twocountries’ relations.
As part of the visits, ministries, sectors, localities, andenterprises of Vietnam also engaged in activities to connect with US partners,resulting in the signing of tens of agreements. This came as a result of andalso a step to carry out the newly established comprehensive strategicpartnership.
The Vietnamese leaders’ recent visits to the US to attend theUN General Assembly session and the APEC Economic Leaders’ Week continued todemonstrate the foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, anddiversification and multilateralisation of external relations, and affirmVietnam as a responsible partner determined to make practical contributions tothe settlement of regional and global issues.
Theupgrade of the Vietnam - US relations will also have positive impact on theseorganisations’ activities, especially as they have considered coordination atregional and international forums an important pillar of their comprehensivestrategic partnership, according to Ambassador Dung./.
VNA
