Hanoi (VNA) – President Vo Van Thuong and his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo affirmed the importance the two countries attach to the bilateral strategic partnership, and agreed on the need to soon elevate it to a new height, at their talks in Hanoi on January 12 morning.
The talks took place following an official welcome ceremony for the Indonesian leader, who is paying a state visit to Vietnam from January 11-13.
President Thuong highly valued achievements that Indonesia has recorded in both home and external affairs under the leadership of President Widodo over the past two tenures, and congratulated Indonesia on its successful performance of G20 Presidency in 2022, and ASEAN and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) Chairmanship last year.
He noted his hope that Indonesia will successfully organise its upcoming general election and further develop, for peace and cooperation in the region and the world.
For his part, Widodo expressed his pleasure in his second visit to Vietnam in his capacity as the President of Indonesia, and thanked Vietnam for supporting Indonesia in performing the ASEAN Chairmanship in 2023, saying Indonesia wishes to enhance its traditional friendship and cooperation with Vietnam – its only strategic partner in the ASEAN.
The leaders rejoiced at the strong, dynamic development of the bilateral strategic partnership, with regular all-level delegation exchanges and contacts, notably the phone talks between Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and President Widodo in August 2022.
They shared the view that the 2019-2023 action programme for the strategic partnership has been implemented effectively, and cooperation in other important fields like national defence-security, education-training, culture-tourism, locality-to-locality connectivity and people-to-people exchange has also made progress.
Indonesia is Vietnam’s third largest trade partner in the ASEAN, while Vietnam is Indonesia’s fourth biggest trade partner in the grouping, they said, noting that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, two-way trade still grew significantly, from 9 billion USD in 2019 to nearly 14 billion USD last year.
For future cooperation orientations, the Presidents consented to foster political trust through delegation exchanges and contacts, the effective implementation of bilateral cooperation mechanisms, and the early building of the 2024-2028 action programme. Given the significant cooperative outcomes over the past nearly 70 years, the two countries should early lift their strategic partnership to a new level, they said.
