President’s visits lift up Vietnam’s partnership with Russia, Belarus

President Tran Dai Quang and Russian President Vladimir Putin

The Deputy FM said that President Quang’s visits, spanning from June 26 to July 1, marked a strong progress in the increasingly practical partnership with the two traditional and promising partners.

The visits were the first ones made by the President to the two countries since he took office in 2016, which coincided with the 100th anniversary of the Russian October Revolution, the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam-Belarus diplomatic ties, and the fruitful period of the Vietnam-Eurasian Economic Union free trade agreement.

At meetings with President Quang, Russian leaders affirmed that the country considers Vietnam one of the priorities in the Asia-Pacific region and is keen on boosting cooperation with Vietnam in all fields, he noted.

The President also held meetings with representatives of the business community, localities, the Russia-Vietnam Friendship Association and Russian veterans who spent time in Vietnam who expressed their wish to contribute to further tightening the Vietnam-Russia ties.

Meanwhile, Belarus leaders, especially President A. Lukachenko, highly valued the traditional relationship with Vietnam, regarding the Southeast Asian nation as a trustworthy partner in Southeast Asia.

The two sides shared hope and determination to deepen their friendship and cooperation and lift the ties to a new height.

During the visits, Vietnam signed 14 cooperation agreements with Russia and nine deals with Belarus in various fields, including economy, defence, security, sports and tourism, natural resources and environment, science-technology and cooperation between localities.

According to Son, following the visits, Vietnam and Russia issued a joint statement, while President Tran Dai Quang and his Belarusian counterpart A. Lukashenko signed a joint declaration on the comprehensive and extensive development of the bilateral partnership.

President Tran Dai Quang and Russian and Belarusian leaders agreed to optimize the advantages of the Vietnam-EAEU free trade agreement to create a strong boost to economic-trade collaboration, targeting US$10 billion in trade with Russia and US$500 million with Belarus by 2020, he said.

Vietnam and Russia concurred to focus on increasing investment and set up joint ventures, while effectively implement prioritised cooperation projects in oil and gas, energy, machinery manufacturing and automobile assembling, and expanding collaboration to agriculture, transport infrastructure building, and telecommunication.

At the same time, Belarus is willing to cooperate with Vietnam in areas of Vietnam’s demand, including automobile assembling, infrastructure building, IT, chemicals and agriculture. The Vietnam-Belarus automobile assembling joint venture MAZ Asia is scheduled to become operational in late 2017.

The Deputy FM went on to say that during the visits, the Vietnam-Russia and Vietnam-Belarus economic seminars were successful, showing businesses’ determination to tap opportunities from the Vietnam-EAEU free trade agreement.

Vietnam and Russia agreed to continue strengthening cooperation in atomic energy, affiliation among localities, and partnership in education and training as well as organising Russian Culture Days in Vietnam in 2017.

Vietnam and Belarus shared the wish to bolster cooperation in science-technology, culture, education-training, ICT and connections among localities.

Both countries also pledged to coordinate closely with Vietnam at multilateral mechanisms.

Son also stressed his impression at a meeting between President Tran Dai Quang and war veterans and experts of Russia and Belarus who devoted their youth to Vietnam. President Quang said Vietnam is always grateful to the people of Russia and Belarus for their whole-hearted support.

During his stay, President Quang paid special attention to the Vietnamese communities in the host countries, added Son.