At the Online Summit on the morning of July 22 at Vietnam time, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, jointly announced to officially upgrade Vietnam-New Zealand relations to a Strategic Partnership. This may mean creating momentum to promote bilateral relations continue in-depth, more and more efficient in all areas, for the benefit of the two peoples and contribute to peace and prosperity of the Pacific-Indian Ocean region.

Attending the conference were the Minister, Chairman of the Government Office and leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Education of the two countries.

The impulse to promote bilateral relations

In Hanoi, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc highly appreciated the comprehensive development of the friendship and cooperation between the two countries in nearly half a century and praised political-diplomatic relations and economic cooperation. economic and trade, agriculture, education and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries and acknowledge New Zealand's sincere support. Over the past years, your country has made significant contributions to the socio-economic development and construction of Vietnam. In the context that the global economies are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Prime Minister asked the two sides to work together to maintain trade cooperation, striving to bring two-way turnover to 2 billion USD / year; proposed New Zealand to open the door to the Vietnamese agricultural market, share experiences in branding and develop a value chain of some fruits to reach markets requiring high standards.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also congratulated Vietnam on its extremely successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic and expressed her impression of effective anti-epidemic measures, demonstrating the Government's determination. Vietnam in protecting the health and lives of people as well as foreign citizens in Vietnam; Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern believes that both countries have good disease control, which is a favorable condition for early restoration of connection and cooperation in all fields.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern highly appreciated Vietnam's active role and contribution as a non-permanent member of the Security Council as well as UN peacekeeping operations over the past few years; Thank you to Viet Nam for your active dedication and contribution to the promotion of the ASEAN - New Zealand Strategic Partnership.

Significance

Joint statement between Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on upgrading the relationship between Vietnam and New Zealand to the level of a Strategic Partnership, comes at a time when the two countries are celebrating 45 years of foreign relations delivery. Making New Zealand the 17th Strategic Partner of Vietnam. And Vietnam is New Zealand's first strategic partner. With Vietnam, the establishment of a Strategic Partnership with New Zealand will contribute to promoting cooperation with mid-range countries in both bilateral and multilateral frameworks, especially with ASEAN and APEC.

Views and interests in common

The two Prime Ministers agreed to assign the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the two countries to soon develop an Action Plan to implement the Strategic Partnership, including increasing delegation exchanges on the Party, government and National Assembly channels, and organize meetings regular meetings between the two Prime Ministers, annual meetings between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Industry and Trade, between the leaders of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security and the New Zealand Police Agency, as well as bilateral dialogue mechanisms. on agriculture, marine cooperation and other issues of mutual interest.

The two Prime Ministers emphasized that Vietnam and New Zealand have similar views and interests on many regional and international issues of mutual interest, and support multilateralism and the regional and international order based on law. rate. While continuing to express their concerns about developments in the South China Sea, the two sides reaffirmed the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and overflight, and mediating settlement. pacify disputes based on international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which emphasizes UNCLOS as a solid legal framework governing all activities in the seas and oceans. and at the same time called on the parties to respect the decision of the dispute settlement mechanisms of UNCLOS.

The two Prime Ministers affirmed their commitment to enhancing cooperation and mutual support at multilateral forums, especially when Vietnam assumed the role of ASEAN Chairman 2020, a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. period 2020-2021. In 2021, New Zealand prepares to assume the role of APEC Chair in 2021, both countries are active members of new generation free trade agreements such as CPTPP and RCEP. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc highly appreciated the friendship and good bilateral cooperation in the past half century in politics, diplomacy, economics, trade, agriculture, education and people-to-people exchange. Prime Minister thanked New Zealand for its support to Vietnam in socio-economic development. He also set a target of 2 billion USD bilateral trade and export many Vietnamese agricultural products to New Zealand.

After the talks, the New Zealand press simultaneously reported, emphasizing the two sides' commitment to open markets and reduce trade barriers to achieve two-way trade turnover to $ 2 billion by the end of 2020. This two sides signed 4 cooperation agreements in the fields of agriculture, finance, education and labor. According to CNA, trade turnover between the two countries has more than doubled in the past five years to 1.3 billion USD.