Mozambican President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi and his wife are paying an official visit to Vietnam from September 8 to 10 at the invitation of General Secretary and President To Lam and his wife.
This is President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi’s first visit to Vietnam since taking office in 2015 and the first visit to Vietnam by a Mozambican president in more than 17 years.
Located in southeastern Africa, the Republic of Mozambique has an area of nearly 800,000 square kilometres and a population of 32 million people. On June 25, 1962, the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) was established with Marxism-Leninism as its ideological foundation. The FRELIMO Party led the Mozambican people’s armed struggle and contributed to the overthrow of the Portuguese dictatorship.
On June 25, 1975, the chairman of the FRELIMO Party declared the establishment of the People’s Republic of Mozambique (now the Republic of Mozambique). Mozambique has actively participated in resolving conflicts and strengthening cooperation to protect the legitimate interests of African countries and developing countries. It is also an active member of the African Union (AU), the group of Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Mozambique promotes the Look East policy through enhancing cooperation with China, Japan, India, Vietnam, and so on. Mozambique is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the 2023-2024 term.
In recent times, the Mozambican government has focused on poverty reduction and food security. The country is actively calling for foreign investment, stepping up infrastructure construction, and promoting internal strength for national construction. Thanks to that, Mozambique has achieved many successes in economic reform.
Vietnam and Mozambique enjoy a traditional friendly cooperative relationship, and maintain good relations through Party and State channels. The two countries established diplomatic relations on June 25, 1975 — the day when Mozambique declared its independence.
The Communist Party of Vietnam and the ruling FRELIMO Party have a good traditional friendship, which is a solid political foundation to promote bilateral relations in various fields. Vietnam and Mozambique actively coordinate and support each other at multilateral forums and have supported each other in joining the UN Security Council, whereby Vietnam was a non-permanent member for the 2020-2021 term and Mozambique is for the 2023-2024 term.
Mozambique supports Vietnam’s candidacy for membership of the UN Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term. The two countries regularly conduct high-level delegation exchanges and meetings, especially the virtual talks between General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and FRELIMO Party leader and President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi in June 2022; President Truong Tan Sang’s visit to Mozambique in 2016; Politburo member and Minister of Public Security To Lam’s visit to Mozambique in 2019; and President Armando Guebuza and President of the Assembly Esperanca Bias’s respective visits to Vietnam in 2007 and 2022. The two countries successfully organised the 4th meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee in Mozambique in May 2023.
During nearly 50 years of cooperation, Vietnam and Mozambique have achieved many outstanding achievements in traditional cooperation areas such as politics, economics, trade, health, agriculture, and education, while at the same time expanding cooperation in information and communications, and digital transformation.
In economic cooperation, Movitel — the 600-million-USD joint venture between Viettel and Mozambique’s SPI — is a bright spot in Viettel’s foreign investment and a symbol of success in Vietnam-Mozambique economic cooperation.
Two-way trade in 2023 reached 546.4 million USD, with Vietnam having exported 127 million USD worth of rice, fertilisers, and other goods and imported 419.4 million USD worth of goods, mainly coal and cashew nuts.
On agricultural cooperation, the two countries have successfully implemented a number of agricultural projects, notably a cooperation project on the research and development of food crops in Mozambique for the 2013-2017 period, in which Vietnam funded 1.96 million USD, which was highly appreciated by Mozambique’s senior leaders.
On health and education cooperation, Vietnam has sent many health and education experts to work in Mozambique. The two countries have signed many cooperation agreements in the fields of trade, health, agriculture, education, aviation, biodiversity protection, and security and defence.
The official visit to Vietnam by President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi and his wife at the invitation of General Secretary and President To Lam and his wife demonstrates Mozambique’s desire to strengthen and further promote the traditional friendly and cooperative relationship, as well as its appreciation of Vietnam’s role and position in the region and on the international arena.
The visit demonstrates the continued implementation of the 13th National Party Congress’s foreign policy and the project on developing relations between Vietnam and Middle Eastern and African countries for the 2016-2025 period, which affirms the Vietnamese Party and State’s consistent policy of always attaching importance to the traditional friendly and cooperative relations with African countries, including Mozambique.
May Mozambican President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi and his wife’s official visit to Vietnam be a great success, contributing to enhancing understanding and political trust, and creating new momentum to further deepen the traditional friendly and cooperative relationship between the two countries.
