Vietnam France partnership highlighted as PM Chinh meets President Macron
Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and French President Emmanuel Macron have agreed to reinforce the two nations’ strategic partnership as they met in France.
President Macron said he expects to further deepen the Vietnam-France strategic partnership when receiving PM Chinh, on his official three-day visit to France from Nov. 3-5, on Thursday.
Chinh and Macron emphasized the need to further strengthen economic, trade, and investment cooperation.
The two leaders agreed on directions and measures for cooperation in the coming time in order to create more favorable conditions for bilateral trade exchanges.
They are also on the same page on boosting cooperation in major fields like transportation, infrastructure, agriculture, the environment, energy and aeronautics, and aviation; and working towards building long-term industrial partnerships on the basis of high technology transfer, especially in sectors like clean energy, organic agriculture, and digital technology.
Macron praised the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and affirmed the importance of maintaining security, safety, and freedom of navigation and aviation, advocating the settlement of disputes by peaceful means, based on international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), especially in the South China Sea issue. Vietnam calls the waters the East Sea.
Chinh highly praised France’s collaboration with Vietnam at multilateral forums, particularly when Vietnam held the role of non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council earlier this year.
He hoped France would continue working as a bridge to boost Vietnam-EU relations, as well as ASEAN-EU relations, especially when France assumes the EU presidency next January.
The Vietnamese PM added he wished France would continue to provide medical equipment and transfer technology for Covid-19 drug production and help Vietnam improve its medical capacity.
Macron thanked Vietnam for its mask support in the context of the Covid-19 outbreak last year and announced France would further support Vietnam with 400,000 vaccine doses through bilateral channels and 970,000 doses of vaccines through the Covax facility, bringing the total number of vaccines France has provided Vietnam to more than two million doses.
By Vo Thanh – VnExpress.net – November 5, 2021