Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam always attaches importance to strengthening and developing the traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation with Bulgaria, especially through the Party-to-Party channel, Ambassador Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet affirmed at her recent working session with Atanas Zafirov, Chairman of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria.
Zafirov noted that the BSP, formerly the Bulgarian Communist Party, has a traditional friendship with the Communist Party of Vietnam. He expressed his wish to promote Party-to-Party cooperation with the Southeast Asian nation, enhance high-level political dialogue, and exchange theories and policy-making experience. He stressed boosting youth cooperation, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, contributing to consolidating political trust between the two countries.
The BSP leader highly valued bilateral cooperation through the intergovernmental committee mechanism, proposing an expansion to the fields of economy, trade, investment, energy, science-technology, tourism, and labour. He also suggested making use of the Vietnam–EU and Vietnam–ASEAN cooperation frameworks and welcomed Vietnam’s new visa exemption policy for Bulgarian citizens.
Earlier, the Vietnamese diplomat met with several BSP ministers in the Bulgarian Government, including Minister of Environment and Water Manol Genov, Minister of Youth and Sports Ivan Peshev, and Minister of Labour and Social Policy Borislav Gutsanov, reiterating Vietnam’s commitment to promoting cooperation across all areas.
On the environment, Nguyet proposed establishing an official cooperation mechanism between the two countries’ ministries, with delegation exchanges, experience sharing, and technology transfer in wastewater treatment, waste management, pollution control, renewable energy development, biodiversity conservation, and resources management. She also called on Bulgaria to advocate for EU support for Vietnam in the circular economy, green economy, marine and forest conservation.
On sports, she suggested cooperation in training, coaching, sports science research, and stronger collaboration between the two national olympic committees. She also proposed facilitating Vietnamese teams’ training in Bulgaria, along with expert exchanges and experience sharing on an annual basis to improve Vietnam’s sports performance.
Manol Genov stressed the need to soon establish a cooperation mechanism between the two ministries and relevant agencies, ready for dialogue, knowledge and technology sharing, as well as expert and scholarship exchanges in Bulgaria’s areas of strength such as energy security, biodiversity, atmosphere, disaster prevention, and forest fire control. He also expressed Bulgaria’s interest in learning from Vietnam’s experience in marine and ocean economy development, affirming that Vietnam can count on Bulgaria’s support within the EU framework.
Ivan Peshev proposed delegation exchanges at all levels and training support for Vietnamese coaches and athletes in sports that Bulgaria has advantages./.
