NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue (R) meets with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

New opportunities

The official visits to Australia and New Zealand by National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue and the high-ranking delegation of the National Assembly of Vietnam are practical steps of implementing the important foreign policy of the 13th National Party Congress, which underlines the importance of strengthening in-depth, effective and substantive relations with neighboring countries and strategic partners, including Australia and New Zealand, key partners in many aspects to Vietnam in the South Pacific region.

The Australia visit took place when the two countries were preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations. At a meeting with the Australian Prime Minister, inspired by important achievements in the bilateral relations over the past time, the two leaders agreed to advocate the consideration of upgrading the relationship to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership at an appropriate time when relevant formalities are completed. This is a positive sign for the bilateral relationship.

The Vietnam-Australia Economic Cooperation Forum was one of the remarkable events of the visit. Knowing that there is a vast room for currently limited trade revenue, NA Chairman Hue raised a question to give explanations to inconsistencies in bilateral investment and trade relations; hoped to see more talks held in the future where attendees will generate motivation and vitality on economic, trade, and investment relations between the two countries.

NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue and Speaker of New Zealand House of Representatives Adrian Rurawhe hold talks in Wellington, New Zealand 

Impetus for Vietnam-Zealand relations

Following the official visit to Australia, he started his tour to New Zealand.

The Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament welcomed the Vietnamese counterpart and his delegation, saying that the Vietnam-New Zealand relationship, which has grown strongly from a very proud history, was lifted to Comprehensive Partnership in 2009 and Strategic Partnership in 2020.

The two parliamentary leaders agreed on the need to further strengthen economic, trade and investment cooperation and make this field a driving force to boost their two-way relations, saying that free trade agreements to which the two countries are signatories such as AANZFTA, RCEP and CPTPP are important frameworks to promote economic cooperation. Besides the traditional cooperation fields such as education, training, tourism, culture, sports, labor, agriculture, forestry and fishery, the two sides need to expand cooperation to new and potential fields such as digital transformation, energy transformation and climate change.

Regarding parliamentary cooperation, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly Vu Hai Ha said that the cooperation by the two legislative bodies is promoted on both bilateral and multilateral levels and asserts the important and substantive roles of parliamentary cooperation in strengthening the two countries’ relations. The two sides agreed to study and build a parliamentary cooperation agreement to provide a regulatory framework for the two sides to promote and deepen cooperation ties in the coming time.

NA Chairman Hue attended the Vietnam-New Zealand Economic Cooperation Forum in New Zealand. Given that, in the current context of unpredictable volatility, having trustworthy friends to work together and share common values of peace, stability, cooperation and development, for the prosperity of each country, for the benefit of businesses and people, is extremely valuable.

Economic, trade and investment cooperation has been growing day by day, he said, adding, “I look forward to seeing strong confidence and optimism of New Zealand businesses investing in Vietnam. We welcome you and will work with you to create new great successes.”