Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the phone talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on January 13 (Photo: VNA) –
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh talked over the phone with Chinese Premier Li
Keqiang on January 13, on the occasion of the 72nd founding
anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic ties (January 18, 1950 - 2022).
PM Chinh affirmed that the
traditional friendship and comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between
Vietnam and China is the top priority in Vietnam’s foreign policy of
independence, self-reliance, and multilateralism and diversification of foreign
relations.
The two countries’ relationship
is crucial to the stability and development of each side and also beneficial to
the maintenance of peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the region
and the world at large, he emphasised.
The Vietnamese PM noted after
35 years of Doi moi (Renewal), under the leadership of many generations of
leaders, currently Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam has been
building, supplementing, and increasingly perfecting the theory on socialism
and the path to socialism in the country.
Sharing his Vietnamese
counterpart’s view, Premier Li congratulated Vietnam on its achievements in the
COVID-19 combat and socio-economic recovery and development.
He stressed that China
attaches great importance to the ties with Vietnam and wishes to enhance their
time-tested friendship and unceasingly develop the comprehensive strategic
cooperative partnership in a substantive manner.
China highly values and
consistently supports Vietnam in following the path to socialism that matches the
latter’s situation, he affirmed.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Vietnamese officials at the phone talks on January 13 (Photo: VNA)
The two PMs applauded the
countries’ high-level meetings last year, especially the phone talks between
their Party General Secretaries.
Despite the pandemic’s adverse impacts, bilateral trade still hit a record of over 160 billion USD in 2021,
the Cat Linh - Ha Dong metro line has been put into operation, and especially the
two sides have worked closely with each other to deal with the farm produce
congestion at border gates.
Regarding the goods
congestion at border gates, PM Chinh underlined that both sides should
coordinate closely and adopt effective and drastic solutions to this problem,
thus ensuring smooth trading and maintaining supply and production chains between
the two countries as well as in the region, particularly in the coming Lunar
New Year holiday.
He asked China to continue
increasing imports and accelerate the opening of its market to some
agricultural products of Vietnam.
Premier Li highlighted his
attention to Vietnam’s recommendations about economic, trade, and investment
links, considering this as an important field in bilateral cooperation.
He ordered relevant ministries,
sectors, and localities of China to settle the issue, and suggested both sides set up a
joint working group to continue dealing with it, thereby facilitating Vietnamese
farm products' entry into China and maintain the trade flow.
In terms of border and
territorial affairs, PM Chinh asked the two sides to keep effectively implementing
the three documents on the Vietnam - China land border; further bring into play
negotiation mechanisms to sustain peace and stability in the East Sea; respect
each other’s legitimate and legal interests that are in line with international
law, properly handle sea-related issues in accordance with the high-level
common perceptions and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea; and actively boost talks so as to soon finalise a substantive and effective Code
of Conduct (COC) in the East Sea matching international law.
The Chinese leader expressed
his hope that the negotiation mechanisms on sea-related issues between the two
countries will be stepped up so that substantive progress is obtained, adding
that his country is ready to join Vietnam and other ASEAN countries in striving
to reach a COC early.
During the talks, the leaders
agreed to maintain channels of discussion about land border and sea-related
issues, promote consensus, iron out differences, and maintain common peace and
stability./.