Vietnam and New Zealand established bilateral diplomatic relations on June 19, 1975, and lifted the bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Partnership in 2009. They officially upgraded their relations to a Strategic Partnership in 2020, creating a new momentum to foster the bilateral cooperation in a deeper and more substantive manner.
Vietnam affirmed its importance and aspiration to strengthen its friendship and cooperation with New Zealand, which is a strategic partner of Vietnam and of ASEAN in the South Pacific region. Meanwhile, New Zealand considers Vietnam an important factor in its policy for the Asia-Pacific region.
The two countries share similar views and interests on many regional and international issues, and also show support to multilateralism and rules-based international order.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s official visit to Vietnam is made in the context that the two countries have witnessed positive achievements in recent time, even during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
The two countries have maintained the exchange of high-level delegations, contributing to enhancing political trust and promoting comprehensive cooperation.
Bilateral cooperation mechanisms, such as political consultation, defence policy dialogue, agricultural dialogue, joint committee on economic and trade cooperation and foreign ministers’ meeting, have been held regularly.
The two sides have actively implemented cooperation documents, including the action plan to deploy the bilateral strategic partnership in the 2021-2024 period.
The two-way trade hit 1.3 billion USD in 2021 and 1.1 billion USD in the first nine months of 2022, up 26.7% and 13.6% year-on-year, respectively.
New Zealand has frequently provided stable and gradually increasing official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam and supported the country in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. New Zealand committed 26.7 million NZD in non-refundable ODA for Vietnam during the 2021 – 2024 period to implement projects on agriculture, climate change response, and pandemic prevention and control.
Bilateral cooperation has been well promoted in the fields of security and defence, education and training, and agriculture. The two countries are interested in expanding cooperation to several new fields such as digital transformation and energy transformation.
The official visit to Vietnam of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is an important occasion for the leaders of the two countries to discuss orientations and measures to further consolidate political trust and promote bilateral multifaceted cooperation.
Vietnam and New Zealand have shown sound cooperation in regional and international issues while promoting coordination and supporting each other at international organisations and multilateral forums, including the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
Both countries share a stance on ensuring peace, stability, security, cooperation and development in the region based on rules and settling matters, including the East Sea/South China Sea issue, in line with international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The two countries have closely coordinated with each other in the implementation of trade agreements of which they are members to, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.
The official visit to Vietnam of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is an important occasion for the leaders of the two countries to discuss orientations and measures to further consolidate political trust and promote bilateral multifaceted cooperation, including politics-diplomacy, defence-security, economy, investment, labour, education, technology, climate change, and digital transformation.
In welcoming the official visit of Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, Vietnam affirms its foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, multilateralisation, and diversification of external relations, asserting that Vietnam is a friend and a responsible partner of the international community.
The visit also illustrates Vietnam’s consistent policy of attaching great importance to and aspiration to strengthen and deepen the Vietnam-New Zealand Strategic Partnership
May the official visit to Vietnam of Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern be a great success, contributing to elevating the Vietnam-New Zealand strategic partnership in a deeper and more effective manner, for the benefit of the two peoples, while contributing to peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo- Pacific region and the world at large.
