PM holds phone talks with Australian counterpart

Prime Minister Pham thanked Australia for donating over 26.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Viet Nam and maintaining its official development assistance for the Southeast Asian country.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Albanese congratulated Viet Nam on its election to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the tenure 2023-2025, and affirmed that relations with Viet Nam are always important to Australia.

The two leaders valued the maintenance of high-level delegation exchanges and meetings, including the upcoming official visit to Australia by top Vietnamese legislator Vuong Dinh Hue.

They noted with pleasure at the growing economic and trade ties between the two countries, with the two-way trade reaching US$12.4 billion in 2021 (up by nearly 50 percent) and US$12 billion in the first nine months of 2022 (up by over 30 percent), making Australia the country's seventh largest trade partner and Viet Nam the 10th largest of Australia.

Bilateral cooperation in security-defense, labor, education-training, agriculture, science-technology, tourism, aviation, and people-to-people exchanges have also been growing.

Prime Minister Pham asked Australia to continue technical support for Viet Nam and further open its market to fresh fruit and fishery products from the Southeast Asian nation.

He called on Australia to encourage its enterprises to increase investment in Viet Nam, particularly in renewable energy, hi-tech agriculture, telecommunications, infrastructure development, and supply chains.

Both sides agreed to continue seeking opportunities and enhancing ties in potential fields like climate change response, digital transformation, energy transition, hi-tech agriculture, infrastructure development, and supply chains.

The Vietnamese leader called on Australia to continue assisting ASEAN to improve healthcare capacity and train high-quality human resources while supporting the bloc's efforts to narrow the development gap, including in the Mekong sub-region.

With regard to the East Sea issue, Albanese expressed his support for ASEAN and Viet Nam's stance and viewpoint, sharing the view on the need to resolve disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); guarantee security, safety, and freedom of navigation and overflight in the region with respect for countries' interests; fully implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC); and build a substantive, effective, and efficient code of conduct (COC) in the East Sea.

Prime Minister Pham took the occasion to invite his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese to pay an official visit Viet Nam. The Australian PM accepted the invitation and said the trip will be organized when the two countries mark the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic ties in 2023./.