On the occasion of the official visit of NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue to the Republic of Argentina and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay from April 23-28, Vietnamese Ambassador to Argentina and Uruguay Duong Quoc Thanh granted an interview with Vietnam News Agency, highlighting the significance of the visit as well as expectations in the cooperation between Vietnam and these two South American countries.
Q: Could you talk about the significance of the visit by the high-ranking delegation of Vietnam, led by NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, to Argentina and Uruguay?
A: The official visit by the high-ranking delegation of Vietnamese National Assembly to Argentina and Uruguay, led by Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue takes place in the context of Vietnam and the two South American countries are actively preparing for the 50th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties with Argentina (October 25, 1973 - October 25, 2023) and the 30th founding anniversary of diplomatic relations with Uruguay (August 11, 1993 - August 11, 2023).
NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue’s official visit is the most important highlight in this series of commemorative activities.
This is also the first high-level visit of a Vietnamese leader to Argentina since 2010 and to Uruguay since the two countries established diplomatic relations.
At that time, Argentina was led by President Juan Peron. He is a famous leftist statesman not only in Argentina but also in the whole region.
Argentina was one of the first three Latin American countries, following Cuba and Chile, to establish diplomatic ties with Vietnam before Vietnam was completely reunified in 1975.
Since the late 1990s of the last century, the two countries opened embassies in each other's capitals and the bilateral relations have developed strongly and comprehensively in the fields of politics, economy, culture and people-to-people exchanges.
In 2010, the two countries established a comprehensive partnership, paving the way for a tremendous growth in trade with the total bilateral turnover increasing from 918 million USD in 2010 to 4.8 billion USD in 2022. As a result, Vietnam became Argentina's fourth most important trading partner in Asia and Argentina is the third most important trading partner of Vietnam in Latin America.
In the overall good relationship between the two countries, parliamentary diplomacy played a prominent role with the high-level visits by former NA Chairman Nguyen Van An in 2006, then Vice Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Vice Chairman Do Ba Ty in 2018.
The visits have enhanced mutual understanding between leaders and people of the two countries, shared experiences on the role of parliaments in legislative and supervisory activities, as well as contributed to creating a favourable legal corridor for the development of their economic relations.
Amid rapid and unpredictable changes of the international context, the relationship between Vietnam and Argentina is considered a good model of South-South cooperation and has many potential rooms for development.
The two countries have many strengths that can complement each other, especially in the fields of agriculture, mining, science and technology.
NA leader Vuong Dinh Hue’s visit, which includes leaders of many ministries, sectors and localities, will create momentum for the two countries to better take advantage of their potentials towards making their relations more and more substantive and effective, for the interests of the people as well as for peace and stability in each region and the world.
For the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, a country in South America with just over 3 million people but with the highest per capita income in the region and leading in free trade in the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), the two sides have also shared many common economic interests as well as supported each other at international forums.
The NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue’s visit will not only promote the two countries' relations in general and bilateral parliamentary relations in particular, but also highlight the multilateral parliament with the talks between the NA Chairman of Vietnam and President of Mercosur Parliament and the Vice Presidents representing the member countries of the bloc.
The Uruguayan side also expressed special respect to NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue through the presentation of Montevideo Capital City Council’s Honourary Citizen title to Vietnamese top legislator within the framework of the visit.
In addition, Uruguay has also repeatedly expressed its desire to strengthen relations with localities of Vietnam.
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Photo: The third meeting of the Joint Committee on Economic, Trade and Investment Cooperation, between Vietnam and Uruguay on April 14, 2023. (Photo: moit.gov.vn) |
Q: Could you please talk more about the expectations of other countries for this visit by NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue?
A: Vietnam, along with Argentina and Uruguay, share the desire to strengthen the comprehensive cooperation commensurate with the capabilities of each country.
Due to the geographical distance and language differences, the information exchanges and understandings about each other is not rich and profound, so many opportunities and potentials for cooperation between Vietnam and these two South American countries have not yet been fully exploited.
The visit of NA leader Vuong Dinh Hue and the high-ranking delegation of Vietnamese NA, is an important step to bring Vietnam closer to Argentina and Uruguay in particular and to South American countries in general. As a result, the effective implementation of the policy of diversification and multilateralisation in economy and trade, will be promoted, contributing to enhancing Vietnam's position in the global production and supply chain.
The visit also meets the aspiration of these two South American countries to strengthen economic ties with Asia, in which Vietnam is willing to serve as a reliable bridge.
I believe that the visit will meet the expectations of the sides, creating a new impetus for the relationship between Vietnam and these two important South American countries.
Thank you very much!
