Vientiane (VNA) – Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on October 10 met with his New Zealand counterpart Christopher Luxon in Vientiane, Laos, on the sidelines of the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits.

At the meeting, PM Chinh thanked the Government and people of New Zealand for providing Vietnam with 1 million NZD (609,000 USD) to help the country overcome the consequences of Typhoon Yagi. He also thanked New Zealand for its warm welcome and expressed his satisfaction with the results of his official visit to New Zealand in March 2024.

The two PMs noted with pleasure that the relationship between the two countries has been developing fruitfully and deepened. They agreed to coordinate in implementing meaningful activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations and the 5th anniversary of Strategic Partnership between the two countries in 2025. Discussing the two countries’ cooperation directions in the coming time, the two leaders emphasised the need to further strengthen cooperation in traditional areas such as trade - investment, education - training, agriculture, people-to-people exchanges and expand to new areas such as climate change response, green economy, and digital economy. PM Chinh suggested the two sides set out specific roadmaps and steps, and create more breakthroughs to bring two-way trade turnover to 2 billion USD by the end of 2024 and 3 billion USD by 2026.

He thanked and called on New Zealand to continue expanding official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam, as well as supporting English and specialised training for Vietnamese officials.

PM Luxon agreed with PM Chinh’s suggestions, emphasising that Vietnam is New Zealand's leading partner in the region.

He affirmed that New Zealand will promote all areas of mutually-beneficial cooperation, continue to provide ODA in practical areas according to Vietnam's development needs, especially high-tech agriculture, natural disaster management and response, and human resource development. The two PMs agreed to continue to coordinate closely at multilateral forums, and make active and responsible contributions to handling common regional and global issues.

PM Luxon emphasised that the two countries' sharing of viewpoints on regional and international issues is the foundation for New Zealand and Vietnam to strengthen cooperation, contributing to building Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions of peace, stability and development.

On this occasion, PM Chinh invited his New Zealan💫d counterpart to visit Vietnam. PM Luxon accepted the invitation with 🏅pleasure./.