6 steps to deepen Vietnam - Hungary relations

At the meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that Vietnam will never forget the valuable support and assistance that Hungary has given Vietnam in the past struggle for independence and national reunification and in the current national construction and development; thanked Hungary for being the country that committed to providing the most preferential credit to Vietnam in the Central and Eastern Europe region with 500 million USD; and during the most difficult period of the Covid-19 pandemic, it provided vaccine aid, contributing to Vietnam's early economic recovery.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets with Hungarian President Sulyok Tamas

PHOTO: NHAT BAC

The Prime Minister emphasized that Vietnam always attaches importance to strengthening relations with traditional friends in the Central Eastern European region, of which Hungary is a top priority.

President Sulyok Tamas expressed his pleasure in his official visit to Vietnam; greatly admired the great and historic achievements of Vietnam after nearly 40 years of renovation; highly appreciated the increasingly high role and position of Vietnam in the region and in the international arena; believed that the path Vietnam is taking is completely correct; affirmed that Vietnam is always Hungary's leading important partner in ASEAN.

The Hungarian President fully agreed with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's proposal on six groups of cooperation measures that need to be strengthened to further deepen the bilateral relationship, including: strengthening political trust through continuing to promote delegation exchanges, thereby promoting cooperation in all fields; in the context of complicated developments in the world, the two sides need to continue to unite, closely coordinate and support each other at multilateral forums, support the stance of resolving disputes by peaceful means, on the basis of respect for international law, to consolidate a peaceful and stable environment for development in each region and the world.

Strengthen the pillar of trade and investment cooperation in bilateral relations, soon convene the Joint Committee on economic cooperation between the two countries, and strive to soon achieve a trade turnover of 2 billion USD.

Strengthen development cooperation between the two countries, propose and effectively implement projects using preferential credit from the Hungarian Government for Vietnam.

Strengthening educational cooperation is a traditional area of cooperation between the two countries, especially in the fields of nuclear energy, electricity, pharmaceuticals, tourism, climate change, etc.

Strengthening cooperation in labor, one of the areas with great potential for complementarity between the two sides, and enhancing cooperation in culture, tourism and people-to-people exchange, focusing on coordinating the organization of activities to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2025.

The Hungarian President affirmed that he will urge the remaining EU countries to soon ratify the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA), and support and urge the European Commission (EC) to soon remove the "IUU Yellow Card" for Vietnam's seafood exports.

The two sides agreed to continue to effectively implement agreements between the two countries, promote cooperation in traditional areas such as trade - investment, science - technology, education - training, defense - security, medicine - pharmacy, culture - tourism and people-to-people exchange, and at the same time expand cooperation to areas where both sides have strengths and complementary needs such as digital transformation, artificial intelligence, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, labor, etc.

The Prime Minister thanked and asked Hungarian authorities at all levels to continue creating favorable conditions for the Vietnamese community in Hungary to integrate more deeply into the host society, make positive contributions to the local socio-economy, and actively promote its role as an important bridge for the traditional friendship between the two countries.

The two leaders affirmed that Vietnamese students who have studied in Hungary are valuable resources for developing relations between the two countries.