Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (L) and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong hold talks, Singapore, February 9, 2023 - Photo: VGP

That agreement was reached during the leaders' summit meeting on February 9 which formed part of the Vietnamese Prime Minister's official visit to Singapore from February 8-10.

The Singaporean Prime Minister congratulated Viet Nam on its strong socio-economic recovery and development in the post-COVID-19 period, asserting that Singapore always attaches importance to and expects to strengthen the strategic partnership with Viet Nam.  

He expressed thanks to Viet Nam for approving the investment of the Viet Nam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) 2 in the central province of Nghe An, voicing his support for Prime Minister Pham's proposals to open more VSIPs in other localities in Viet Nam.  

Lee showed his support for enhancing collaboration in clean energy and power transmission connections and sales with Viet Nam. 

For his part, Pham suggested Singapore consider signing an agreement on labor cooperation with Viet Nam and increase import of Viet Nam's farm products and garments as well as facilitate the introduction of Viet Nam's commodities into Singapore's distribution system.

Viet Nam welcomes and creates favorable conditions for Singaporean investors to expand investment in the country, particularly in fields of digital transformation, green energy, science technology and innovation, Pham pledged. 

He asked Singapore to support Viet Nam to improve the quality of human resources, especially officials at the strategic level and help the nation realize its Vocational Training Development Strategy in the 2021-2030 period. 

Pham invited his Singaporean counterpart to pay an official visit to Viet Nam in 2023 and the latter gladly accepted the invitation. 

Both sides lauded active developments in Viet Nam-Singapore relations in both bilateral and multilateral aspects. 

They agreed to increase political trust, maintain exchanges at all levels and via all channels, ceaselessly boost economic cooperation and effectively implement cooperation agreements, including the recently-inked Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the establishment of digital economy–green economy partnership. 

The two sides vowed to bolster collaboration in new and potential areas such as digital economy, green and circular economy, innovation, clean energy and climate change response. 

The host and the guest agreed to strengthen coordination in fields of defense-security, tourism and people-to-people exchanges. 

They also agreed to consider upgrading bilateral cooperation mechanisms to pave the way for expanding cooperation to new sectors.  

Regarding international and regional issues of shared interest, the two sides vowed to promote cooperation, maintain solidarity and unity and uphold the central role of ASEAN, over strategic issues such as peace and stability in the East Sea and the region.