President of the Mexican Senate Olga Sanchez Cordero (L) and National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue at the talks on July 18. (Source: VNA)

Chairman Hue emphasised that Vietnam will forever keep in mind Mexico’s precious support for its struggle for national independence and reunification, adding it always treasures and wishes to promote traditional relations with Latin American countries, including Mexico, to a new level.

He said Vietnam hopes to enhance connections with Mexico via the Party, governmental, parliamentary and people-to-people channels.

Despite geographical distance and the Covid-19 pandemic’s serious impacts in recent years, the two sides have flexibly and effectively maintained the political consultation and the joint committee on economic, trade and investment cooperation, which has reflected the common resolve to sustain and reinforce bilateral ties.

Asking the two sides to continue increasing all-level mutual visits, especially by their senior leaders, he invited the Senate President to pay an official visit to Vietnam and also conveyed a similar invitation from Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

At the talks, the two parliamentary leaders applauded the encouraging outcomes in their countries’ relations in the recent past.

In spite of the pandemic’s impacts on global trade, bilateral trade turnover still rose 37.5% year on year to 5.06 billion USD in 2021 and stood at 2.33 billion USD in the first five months of 2022.

They held that there remains much room and potential for economic and trade links, especially when both countries are members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

The parliaments of Vietnam and Mexico should facilitate businesses’ access to each other’s markets and capitalise on the CPTPP’s preferential treatment so as to foster economic and trade ties, they said.

Hue noted Vietnam is ready to work with Mexico to further promote trade relations in a more balanced manner and create conditions for the two countries’ enterprises to increase investment in each other’s markets.

Cordero said the Mexican parliament supports the countries’ negotiation, finalisation and signing of important cooperation deals such as an agreement on customs cooperation, an agreement on double taxation avoidance and another on cooperation in higher education, thus creating a legal basis for bilateral collaboration to develop stably and sustainably.