National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue met with President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Duarta Pacheco in Vienna on September 6 as part of his trip to Austria to attend the fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament (WCSP5).

National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue (L) meets President of
the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Duarta Pacheco, Vienna, Austria,
September 6, 2021 - Photo: VGP/Thanh Chung

The Vietnamese NA Chairman informed that the National Assembly of Viet Nam has actively participated in promoting the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), passing laws, verifying and ratifying relevant international conventions and treaties, and approving national strategies and budgets for target programs related to sustainable development.

In particular, it has promptly adopted a resolution to create a legal framework for the Government to proactively implement COVID-19 prevention and control measures, he added.

The top Vietnamese legislator suggested the IPU actively promote initiatives to innovate operations, enhance the role of the IPU in current international affairs, and further develop the partnership between the IPU and the United Nations (UN), thus ensuring the common interests of member parliaments.

He proposed contributing to developing world parliamentary diplomacy and strengthening multilateral cooperation and hastening the implementation of a tripartite cooperation project between member parliaments, the IPU and the UN to support and create conditions for the National Assembly of Viet Nam to integrate more deeply into the activities of international organizations, especially in such matters as sustainable development, poverty reduction, post-pandemic economic recovery and development.       

Viet Nam is willing to host symposiums at the request of the IPU, considering this an opportunity to both support the IPU and improve its international cooperation capacity, affirmed Vuong.

Expressing his consent with the proposals, IPU President Duarta Pacheco affirmed his willingness to come to Ha Noi to discuss in detail the implementation of Viet Nam's initiatives, including the organization of regional symposiums and conferences on SDGs and economic recovery, and a global conference of young parliamentarians between IPU general assemblies.

The two sides agreed that the IPU has been operating actively and effectively as well as made many contributions to inter-parliamentary cooperation and multilateral diplomacy over the past 130 years.

In the coming time, member parliaments should actively propose and promote initiatives to innovate the IPU's activities, especially further developing the IPU-UN partnership.

The COVID-19 pandemic has showed the fact that no single country, developed or developing, can solve global problems by its own and multilateral cooperation remains the best way, including through parliamentary channels, they said, affirming that all parliaments need to work together and put their trust in the IPU to build a better world./.