Vietnam and the Philippines strive to achieve a trade volume of 10 billion USD by 2025

On the morning of January 30th, at the Government Headquarters, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh received the visiting President of the Philippines Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. at the state level.

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Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. at the meeting – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh welcomes President Marcos Jr. on his first state visit to Vietnam and right before the traditional Tet holiday, contributing to the promotion of the friendly and multi-faceted relationship between Vietnam and the Philippines.

Prime Minister Chinh congratulates the Philippines, under the leadership of President Marcos Jr., for continuing to achieve significant economic and social achievements, helping the Philippines maintain GDP growth among the fastest-growing countries in the region, improving the quality of life for the people, and strengthening its position in the international arena.

President Marcos Jr. expresses admiration for Vietnam’s outstanding economic and social development achievements in recent years, affirming that the Philippines always values and desires to elevate the bilateral Strategic Partnership to new heights.

To further deepen the bilateral relationship in a substantial and effective manner, both sides agree to continue strengthening high-level and other level exchanges, exchanging between various sectors and localities, and affirm the importance of regular meetings between the leaders of the two countries to strengthen political trust and promote comprehensive bilateral cooperation. Both sides also agree to promptly implement all bilateral cooperation mechanisms, comprehensively review the Action Program to implement the Strategic Partnership for the 2019-2024 period, and build a new phase Action Program with priority given to new potential areas such as digital transformation, green economic development, circular economy, climate change adaptation, energy transition, etc.

The two sides discuss measures to enhance economic, trade, and investment cooperation, striving to bring the bilateral trade turnover to USD 10 billion by 2025; creating a favorable business and investment environment, especially in areas of mutual interest and strength such as processing technologies, infrastructure, auto-supporting industries, renewable energy, high-tech agriculture, etc.

Regarding rice trade, the Prime Minister affirms that this is one of the important areas of cooperation with the Philippines, not only for economic benefits but also for ensuring food security; he proposes that the two sides effectively implement the Memorandum of Understanding on rice trade cooperation signed on this occasion.

In defense and security cooperation, the two leaders affirm their intention to continue promoting the role of the defense and security cooperation mechanism, promptly resume the Joint Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs mechanism, enhance the effectiveness of joint patrol, search and rescue at sea, as well as strengthen cooperation in combating drugs and other crimes such as cybercrime, high-tech crime, economic crime, etc.

President Marcos Jr. agrees with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s proposal to enhance cooperation in areas with great potential such as education and training, science and technology, tourism, culture, people-to-people exchanges, and local cooperation; he encourages the opening of more direct flights between famous destinations in the two countries.

In the exchange on international and regional issues, the two leaders highly appreciate the close coordination between the two countries at regional and international forums such as ASEAN, the United Nations, APEC, ASEM, etc.; they emphasize the importance of maintaining ASEAN’s unity and central role, and join hands in building a strong, united, and self-reliant ASEAN Community.

Nhat Quang