Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung held talks with his Cambodian counterpart Hun Manet in Hanoi on June 8, right after the welcome ceremony for the latter.
PM Hung welcomed Hun Manet’s visit and attendance at the third ASEAN Future Forum (AFF-3), noting that it will bolster political trust, deepen the bilateral traditional friendship, and push solidarity, cooperation, and connectivity within ASEAN for peace and cooperation in the region and the world.
He conveyed regards from high-ranking Vietnamese leaders to King Norodom Sihamoni, Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk, President of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) Hun Sen, and other senior Cambodian leaders.
Reaffirming Vietnam’s consistent policy of attaching importance and giving high priority to the Vietnam – Cambodia “good neighbourliness, traditional friendship, comprehensive cooperation, and long-term sustainability”, he thanked PM Hun Manet and Cambodian leaders for their goodwill toward the Vietnamese Party, State, and people.
He voiced confidence that Cambodia, under the CPP’s sound guidelines, the Government’s decisive governance, and the public consensus, will keep advancing across all sectors, thus completing Phase I of its Pentagonal Strategy, and meeting the goal of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2050.
Hun Manet, for his part, congratulated Vietnam on its robust growth, spotlighting economic growth of more than 8% in 2025, the highest rate in the region. He believed that under the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s leadership and the Vietnamese Government’s effective governance, Vietnam will notch further gains, successfully realise its two centennial goals, and further elevate its role and standing in the region and beyond.
He affirmed the Cambodian Government’s commitment to closely partnering with its Vietnamese counterpart to effectively realise the outcomes of the high-level meeting between the CPV Central Committee’s Politburo and the CPP Central Committee’s Standing Board, as well as the meeting of the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao Party leaders during the state visit to Cambodia by General Secretary of the CPV Central Committee and State President To Lam in February 2026, together with other high-level agreements reached between the two countries.
The two leaders expressed satisfaction with the strides in bilateral ties in recent years, with stronger political trust and national defence-security ties remaining a key pillar. Trade, investment, and tourism cooperation continue to be bright spots, with bilateral trade nearing 5 billion USD in the first four months of 2026, a 9.6% year-on-year jump. Vietnam welcomed nearly 400,000 Cambodians during the same period, up 41.6% annually. Border affairs have recorded progress, while collaboration in education, socio-culture, and people-to-people exchanges has further expanded, alongside numerous cooperation agreements and friendly exchanges that deepen mutual understanding.
Guided by a shared goal of turning “traditional friendship” into a “growth driver” and “historical closeness” into “strategic proximity”, the two sides outlined major orientations to advance connectivity. They agreed to keep shoring up the foundation of political trust and maintain close defence-security ties, pledging not to let hostile forces use either country’s territory to undermine or threaten the security and interests of the other. They vowed to enhance economic connectivity and joint work in culture, education and tourism.
Host and guest reached broad consensus on infrastructure and border and border-gate connectivity, agreeing to accelerate expressway links between Ho Chi Minh City/Moc Bai and Bavet/Phnom Penh, explore expanding air connections between the two nations and between them and with Laos, and study the establishment of special economic and cross-border economic zones. Both sides also pledged to facilitate customs clearance and the movement of goods.
PM Hun Manet fully backed the host’s proposals to facilitate two-way investment in sectors of their strengths and demand, including agricultural processing, aquaculture, clean energy, construction materials and logistics. They promised to expand education and training cooperation, improve workforce quality, raise public awareness, especially among younger generations, regarding the close neighbourliness, and coordinate in the successful hosting of activities marking the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties next year. They further agreed to create conditions for people of Vietnamese origin in Cambodia to settle down their lives.
The two PMs agreed to task relevant ministries and agencies with developing concrete plans, measures and roadmaps to translate the outcomes of the talks into action.
Amid an increasingly complex and unpredictable global and regional landscape, both sides pledged to strengthen coordination at global and regional forums, particularly within Mekong sub-regional cooperation mechanisms, ASEAN and the United Nations. They vowed to maintain exchanges and consultations on strategic issues of mutual concern and work with other ASEAN member states to reinforce unity and resilience, accelerate the peaceful settlement of differences, and expand cooperation with partners while upholding ASEAN centrality, thereby contributing to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and beyond.
Concluding the talks, they witnessed the exchange of an information cooperation agreement for the 2026–2030 period between the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Cambodian Ministry of Information./.
