Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia Pham Hung Tam had a meeting on May 7 with Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia Tim Watts who expressed his hope to see economic, trade and investment cooperation between the two countries develop commensurate with the new stature of the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

The Australian official highlighted the positive development in the Vietnam-Australia relations, especially after Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's visit to Australia and the upgrade of bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership in March.

Expressing his delight at the success of the visit, Watts held the framework reflects the strategic trust, stature and long-term commitments of the two governments as well as mutual understanding between the two peoples.

He said that Vietnam is one of the priority partners in Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040, for which Australia is sketching out specific frameworks to implement, including priority areas such as trade, education, and health care.

Watts emphasised the significance of cooperation between Australia and this region to deal with common challenges and manage the maritime space according to international law.

For his part, Ambassador Tam highly valued the contributions and support that Watts has made to the upgrade of the Vietnam-Australia relations, and suggested that the two sides coordinate to build a detail action plan to realise the partnership in the 2024-2028 period.

He showed pleasure at the cooperation achievements between the two countries, stressing the need for further promotion of bilateral economic, trade, and investment.

As part of the efforts to implement the joint statement on the upgrade of bilateral relations, this year Vietnam will send many delegations from localities and businesses to Australia for trade and investment promotion, he said.

The diplomat also raise specific proposals to bolster bilateral collaboration in economy, trade, investment, people-to-people exchange, education, and human resources training in the field of semiconductor, as well as other potential areas./.