National Assembly Vice Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan visited Canada on June 28-29 to strengthen the friendship and multi-faceted cooperation between the two sides.

During their stay in Canada , Ngan and her entourage paid a courtesy visit to the Governor General of Canada , David Johnston. The Vietnamese delegation had working sessions with the leaders of the Canadian parliament, including Speaker of the Senate Noel Kinsella and Vice President of the Canada-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians’ Group Andrew Saxton.

The Canadian leaders spoke highly of Vietnam ’s efforts to boost socio-economic development, stabilise the macro economy and ensure social welfare, in particular poverty reduction.

Speaker Noel Kinsella said that the regular exchange of high-ranking visits between the two sides, such as the visit to Vietnam by Governor General David Johnston last year and the current visit of Vice Chairwoman Ngan, has made important contributions to bringing bilateral ties to a new level of development.

He invited the Vietnamese NA to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly to be held in Quebec this October.

Both sides welcomed the positive and rapid development of the bilateral ties over the past year. They agreed to strengthen measures to further deepen the friendship and multi-faceted cooperation between the two nations, especially boosting parliamentary diplomacy to mark the 40 th anniversary of Vietnam-Canada diplomatic ties in 2013.

The two sides also agreed to boost the Canada-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians’ Group’s activities for closer relations between the two legislative bodies and the two peoples.

The Canadian parliamentary leaders spoke highly of Vietnam ’s effective use of Canadian official development aid (ODA) and affirmed that Vietnam will continue to be among the 20 ODA recipients given priority by Canada .

They said that education and training of human resources will be a focus of bilateral cooperation in the coming time.

The two sides discussed specific measures to boost economic, trade and investment cooperation, including Canada ’s consideration of extending the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) for Vietnam and recognition of Vietnam as a market economy. The two countries will also coordinate in the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement ( TPP) .

During their stay in Ottawa , the Vietnamese NA delegation worked with officials from of the Ministries of Public Works & Government Services and Women and visited the School of Public Administration of Canada. They also attended a discussion on increasing women’s contributions to socio-economic development./.