President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc and his Ugandan counterpart at an official welcome ceremony held for the latter in Hà Nội on Thursday morning. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The first visit by a Ugandan Head of State to Việt Nam has been hailed by President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc as an important milestone that enhances friendship and cooperation. 

President Phúc officially welcomed Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to Hà Nội on Thursday. The visit takes place in the context of the two countries looking towards the 50th founding anniversary of their diplomatic ties.

President Phúc spoke highly of achievements made by the Government and people of Uganda over the past years in maintaining political stability and socio-economic development, successfully controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and Ebola virus disease, and helping to raise the position of the country in the region and the world.

He wishes Uganda successfully implement the Uganda Vision 2040 to develop the country from an agricultural society into a modern and prosperous society.

Ugandan President Yoweri expressed his delight to be paying an official visit to Việt Nam for the first time and said he was impressed by the achievements made by Việt Nam in integration and development that have helped raise its position in the international arena.

He congratulated Việt Nam for successfully fulfilling its role as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council during the 2020-21 term, and on its election to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the 2023-25 term. 

He believes Việt Nam will continue to make effective contributions to efforts to ensure the UN's peace, security and development.

The two leaders welcomed positive development in bilateral relations over the past years. The two countries have maintained good political and diplomatic relations and achieved encouraging results in economic cooperation. Two-way trade turnover reached US$14.3 million in 2021, up 39.8 per cent on 2020. In addition, the two sides have actively supported each other at multilateral forums. 

Affirming that ample room remains for cooperation between Việt Nam and Uganda, the two leaders agreed on concrete orientations to promote bilateral cooperation more deeply and effectively in the future.

They also agreed on the importance of enhancing exchanges of delegations at all levels to boost mutual understanding and trust, creating motivation for bilateral economic cooperation.

They will continue coordinating closely and supporting each other at multilateral forums, particularly the United Nations and the non-aligned movements, and serve as a bridge to help connect each other with regional organisations such as the East African Community and the ASEAN.

They confirmed their determination to foster economic cooperation to raise two-way trade turnover to match the good political relations between the two countries and the market scale, with nearly 150 million population of the two economies. 

President Phúc proposed that Uganda create favourable conditions for exporting and importing products that are each country's strengths. Việt Nam mainly imports cotton and wood from Uganda and exports food, garment and textile products, construction materials, transport vehicles, telecommunication equipment, and spare parts to Uganda.

The two sides also stressed the importance of cooperation in agriculture, which they said is one of the key pillars in bilateral cooperation, with priority given to ensuring national food security.

They said they want to promote investment cooperation through exchanges of information about the environment and investment opportunities and to create conditions for businesses of the two countries to boost investment cooperation activities.

The two sides also agreed to expand cooperation to other potential fields such as education and training, information and communications, national defence and security, healthcare, tourism, petroleum, and vaccine research and production.

They reached consensus on coordinating to effectively implement signed cooperation agreements and promote negotiations to sign documents relating to investment encouragement and protection, tax and other fields to create favourable conditions for bilateral trade. 

The two sides also discussed regional and international issues. 

After the talks, the two presidents witnessed the signings of some cooperation documents, including an agreement on visa exemption for their diplomatic and official passport holders, and four memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the fields of diplomacy, education, information and communications, and agricultural techniques. 

During his stay, the President of the Republic of Uganda will pay a courtesy visit to Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng, meet Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính and have working sessions with representatives of FPT Group and the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and attend the Việt Nam – Uganda Business Forum. — VNS