Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính meets Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco London Breed on May 17 (US time). — VNA/VNS Photo Dương Giang

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam wants to promote the relationship between San Francisco and Vietnamese localities, including HCM City, in areas that the US city has strengths, such as economics, trade, science and technology, digital transformation, and climate change response.

Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính made the request to Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco London Breed at a meeting on the morning of May 17 (US time) as part of his trip to the US.

Việt Nam identifies San Francisco, where many Vietnamese people are living, as a key area to promote relations between localities of the two countries, he said, adding that this is the reason why the city was the first place Việt Nam opened its Consulate General in the US.

He suggested the two sides increase the exchange of delegations at all levels, promote people-to-people exchanges, cooperate in human resource training and healthcare capacity improvement, and encourage their enterprises to cooperate in investment and business. He also asked the city to continue creating favourable conditions for the community of about 50,000 Vietnamese people.

Mayor London Breed expressed her honour to welcome PM Chính and the Vietnamese delegation to San Francisco which has had a twin relationship with HCM City from very early on, even before the two countries officially normalised relations.

Speaking highly of Việt Nam’s socio-economic development achievements and pandemic prevention and reopening efforts, Breed said she wants to learn about Việt Nam’s measures to mobilise people to actively participate in the COVID-19 fight, especially in the immunisation drive that resulted in 80 per cent of the population already being fully vaccinated.

Regarding this issue, PM Chính informed the mayor of the main features of Việt Nam’s COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control strategy, in which Việt Nam takes the people as the centre, the subject, the goal and the driving force; and puts people's lives and health first and foremost. Accordingly, all policies target the people and people must participate in implementation, in which vaccination is both a right and a responsibility of each citizen.

He also took the occasion to invite Mayor Breed to visit Việt Nam and HCM City so as to continue promoting the bilateral relations, contributing to advancing the Việt Nam-US ties in a more substantive and effective manner. — VNS