Prime Minister, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and heads of delegations attending the summit. Photo: VGP

This business trip affirms Vietnam's strong commitment and responsible contribution to this historic milestone of the two organizations, paving the way for new opportunities for cooperation and development both bilaterally and multilaterally.

Historical milestone and responsible contribution of Vietnam

This is the first time since the establishment of relations in 1990 that leaders of ASEAN countries met with leaders of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This creates a historic milestone in the bilateral relationship while adding new motivations to ASEAN-GCC cooperation, for peace, stability, and prosperity of the regions and the world.

The Vietnamese delegation participated and made important and responsible contributions to the overall success of the ASEAN-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh gave an important speech, highlighting the significance of the summit, opening up great expectations for the two sides to bring relations to a new level, for peace, cooperation, and mutual development.

The Prime Minister proposed that ASEAN and GCC work together to create favorable conditions so that economics, trade, and investment become the main pillars, the driving force connecting the two regions, complementing each other for mutual development.

The two sides need to deploy open policies, open markets more strongly, remove barriers and build sustainable supply chains.

This is to create conditions for investment funds and businesses of GCC countries to further expand business investment in ASEAN.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh holds talks with Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud. Photo: VGP

Strengthening relationships, opening up new opportunities

The visit to Saudi Arabia is the first business trip of a Vietnamese Prime Minister to Saudi Arabia, creating an important premise for the two countries to strengthen political trust and open new cooperation opportunities.

This is also an opportunity for Vietnam to strengthen relationships with all Gulf countries, a region with a total GDP of up to US$2,200 billion.

With large revenues from oil and gas, GCC countries own the world's leading investment funds such as the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (estimated US$620 billion), and the Public Investment Fund (estimated US$170 billion). They are the target of many countries in attracting investment capital.

The Prime Minister's business trip created a breakthrough in finding new cooperation opportunities, expanding the market for Vietnamese goods and services into Saudi Arabia and the GCC market, especially in attracting investment capital, expanding trade, energy transition, sustainable growth, high-skilled labor, developing the Halal industry, exporting agricultural and aquatic products.

Crown Prince, Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that the two sides are each other's top important partners in the region.

The two countries still have a lot of potential and opportunities to further develop friendly relations and cooperation for the common benefit of the two peoples.

They agreed on the need to continue consolidating good political-diplomatic relations by strengthening the exchange of delegations at all levels, especially high-level delegations, promoting cooperation in trade and investment.

The two sides signed five cooperation documents in the fields of justice, diplomacy, crime prevention, tourism, and trade promotion, completing the legal framework and favorable cooperation conditions for the two countries.

The Prime Minister witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between federations, companies and agencies of Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. Photo: VGP

Promoting key areas of cooperation with partners

During the visit, the Prime Minister had bilateral meetings with Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr., Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

At the meetings, the Prime Minister and leaders exchanged directions and solutions to continue promoting bilateral relations, especially in key areas such as strengthening economic connection between Vietnam and Laos, promoting key transportation infrastructure projects connecting sea, air, road, and railway, bringing Vietnam-Laos economic cooperation to a new level.

They promoted the realization of the idea of "one journey, three destinations" tourism cooperation between Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, boosted negotiations and signing of Agreements on Vietnam-Philippines and Vietnam-Indonesia rice trade cooperation.

They discussed the possibility of establishing an association of Vietnam–Singapore industrial parks and promoting the supply of clean electric energy from Vietnam to the Singapore market.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh witnessed the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam and the GCC Secretariat. Photo: VGP

On this occasion, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam and the GCC Secretariat with the message that Vietnam is ready to be a bridge between ASEAN and GCC.

He also had bilateral meetings with leaders of GCC member countries, demonstrating his determination to strengthen Vietnam's cooperative relations with other countries.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met with Embassy officials, staff and the Vietnamese community in Saudi Arabia. Photo: VGP

Leaders of GCC countries appreciated Vietnam's role and position in the Asia-Pacific region, agreeing that the potential for cooperation between the two sides is still large.

They are ready to join Vietnam in promoting bilateral relations to a new stage of cooperation, further boosting cooperation in all aspects with Vietnam, especially in the fields of economics, trade, and investment, and the activities of large investment funds.

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