Vietnamese, Canadian PMs meet on sidelines of ASEAN Summits

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met with his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau on the occasion of the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits and Related Summits in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on November 12.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) meets with his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau. (Photo: VNA)
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) meets with his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau. (Photo: VNA)

In their first face-to-face meeting, the two leaders expressed their satisfaction with the strong development of the Vietnam-Canada Comprehensive Partnership, affirming their hope to tighten ASEAN-Canada relations.

Towards the 50th founding anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic relations in 2023, the two PMs agreed to promote high-level visits to reach consensus on the orientations for developing the Vietnam-Canada relations in a deep, effective and practical manner.

Besides cooperation in economy - trade - investment and education - training, they reached consensus on boosting collaboration in responding to climate change, promoting gender equality, and handling global challenges such as food security, energy security, and cyber security.

PM Chinh proposed Canada support Vietnam in the fields of energy, digital transformation and green transformation, share experience in technology, governance, institution improvement and especially high-quality human resource training.

He affirmed to welcome Canadian businesses to invest in Vietnam and proposed Canada further open its market for Vietnamese goods, especially agricultural and aquatic products, and grant more scholarships to Vietnamese students. The PM also suggested the Canadian Government create favourable conditions for more than 240,000 Vietnamese people living, working and studying in the nation.

Agreeing with PM Chinh’s proposals, PM Trudeau said that the Indo-Pacific Strategy that Canada is about to announce will cover many areas of common interests of the two countries such as innovation, green and clean technologies, digital technology, human resource development.

He showed his hope that the strategy will open up many new opportunities to further strengthen cooperation between Canada and ASEAN in general and Vietnam in particular.

On this occasion, PM Chinh invited his Canadian counterpart to soon visit Vietnam again. The latter accepted the invitation with pleasure and said he will arrange the visit at an appropriate time.

VNA