Xi's Vietnam visit is expected to strengthen bilateral ties

The state visit to Vietnam by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president will help to deepen and elevate the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, Vietnam's top envoy to China said.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. The coming state visit is taking place at a meaningful time.

According to the Vietnamese Ambassador to China Pham Sao Mai, during the visit, high-ranking leaders of the two parties and countries will have in-depth discussions on deepening and elevating the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Vietnam, promote exchanges between senior leaders of the two parties and countries to further consolidate political trust, and actively bolster areas of collaboration.

These discussions will contribute to bringing bilateral relations to a more substantive and effective development stage, the ambassador said.

About political relations, the ambassador said regular high-level exchanges between the two sides have made important contributions to strengthening political trust between the two parties and countries.

This year, Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong attended the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing in October; while Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh paid an official visit to China, and attended the World Economic Forum's 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin in June, the China-ASEAN Expo and the 20th China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in Nanning in September.

During these activities, the two countries' leaders continued to put forth major measures to effectively realize the important common perceptions reached by the two highest-level leaders, creating a strong driving force to promote the stable and healthy development of friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation between Vietnam and China, the ambassador said.

Economic and trade cooperation continues to form an important part of the two countries' relationship. China remains Vietnam's largest trading partner and second-largest export market, while Vietnam is China's biggest trading partner in ASEAN and sixth largest partner in the world.

According to the Ministry of Commerce of China, bilateral trade between China and Vietnam has exceeded $200 billion for two consecutive years. In the first 10 months of this year, bilateral trade reached $185.1 billion. The exports of Vietnamese agricultural products such as durian to China have significantly increased, while cross-border e-commerce has been thriving.

Cooperation in other fields such as tourism, culture, and education has also seen progress. China has reopened commercial flights to Vietnam. In the first 11 months of this year, there were 1.5 million Chinese visitors to Vietnam, the ambassador added.

Both sides have also actively coordinated at multilateral forums to promote peace, stability, and cooperation in the region and the world, uphold the central role of ASEAN, and comply with the UN Charter and international law, said the ambassador.

He stressed that Vietnam and China have a long-standing traditional friendship that has been built and nurtured by many generations of leaders and people of the two countries.

President Xi's coming visit to Vietnam will certainly create more motivation to deepen and elevate the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, bringing practical benefits to the parties, states, and people of the two countries as well as contributing to maintaining peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world, he added.