Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his wife set off to attend the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit, officially visit Australia and New Zealand.

What are the meanings and key contents of the Prime Minister's official visit to New Zealand this time?

The official visit to New Zealand by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the high-ranking Vietnamese government delegation has many special meanings.

This is Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's first visit to New Zealand - Vietnam's strategic partner since 2020.

The visit of the head of government is also an important occasion to deepen cooperation and strategic partnership, aiming to celebrate the 50th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2025.

The visit is also a concrete implementation step of the foreign policy of the 13th Party Congress.

It determined to attach importance to developing cooperative relations with the Asia-Pacific region, including New Zealand, an important strategic partner of Vietnam.

During the visit, a number of cooperation documents will be signed between the two countries.

We believe that the Prime Minister's visit to New Zealand will create new impetus for bilateral cooperation in the fields of economics, trade, education and training, security and defense.

We will discover and utilize the potential for cooperation in new fields, contributing to the country's economic growth, social stability, and sustainable development.

We believe that with the Prime Minister's visit to New Zealand, the strategic partnership will develop more deeply, contributing to strengthening mutual understanding, and friendship between the people of the two countries.

The action program to implement the Vietnam-New Zealand strategic partnership for the period 2021-2024 is an important direction in cooperation between the two countries since the establishment of the strategic partnership.

What are the outstanding results in implementing this program as well as the prospects for the action program between the two countries in the new period?

The action program to implement the Vietnam-New Zealand strategic partnership for the period 2021-2024 is proposed with a focus on strengthening political relations, promoting trade relations, and enhancing agricultural cooperation.

It promotes connections in education and training, develops defense and security cooperation, and increases connection activities and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

Political and diplomatic relations between the two countries continue to develop, contributing to improving the level of political trust, mutual respect and understanding.

Delegation exchanges take place regularly at all levels, including high-level visits in 2022, and over 20 working delegations at ministerial, sectoral and local levels in 2023.

The two sides also continue to closely coordinate and cooperate in multilateral forums, sharing common views and visions on international, and regional issues.

Vietnamese Ambassador to New Zealand Nguyen Van Trung. (Photo: NH)

Trade exchange had a sustainable recovery after the pandemic. Vietnam is currently New Zealand's 15th largest trading partner while New Zealand is Vietnam's 38th largest trading partner. Two-way turnover reached a value of US$1.3 billion in 2023.

Education and training continue to achieve remarkable results, since the two countries held the first Vietnam-New Zealand Education Cooperation Forum at the end of 2022.

There are currently about 2,000 Vietnamese students studying in New Zealand.

Based on those achievements, during this visit of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, the two sides will discuss measures to summarize the 2021-2024 action program, and identify new focuses, and areas of cooperation appropriate to the new situation.

Besides the traditional areas of cooperation that demonstrated clear effectiveness, what are the new "spaces" for bilateral cooperation?

In addition to consolidating and expanding cooperation in traditional fields such as economics, trade, investment, agriculture, education and training, security, defense, tourism and people-to-people exchanges, the two countries need to fully utilize the potential for cooperation in new fields, and seek new development motivation for the relationship.

New Zealand has strengths in areas such as green economy, energy transition, innovation, digital economy, and digital transformation.

As an island nation, New Zealand also has technological capacity in the fields of marine environmental management and protection, marine economic development associated with protecting biodiversity, and the marine environment.

In addition, with a small population, this country is currently lacking many workers, including unskilled and skilled workers. This is the space that needs to be utilized in the prospects of cooperation between the two countries in the coming time.

The strategic partnership between the two sides is having good developments, along with the potential and strengths of cooperation of each side.

We believe that Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's visit to New Zealand will be a good opportunity to discuss with New Zealand senior leaders and partners to turn opportunities into reality for cooperation, creating new momentum and breakthroughs for the two countries' relationship in the coming years.

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