Vietnamese foreign minister Bùi Thanh Sơn (right) welcomes his Malaysian counterpart Senator Zambry Abdul Kadir on Thursday. – VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese foreign minister Bùi Thanh Sơn and his Malaysian counterpart Senator Zambry Abdul Kadir on Thursday agreed to promote the bilateral strategic partnership, striving for two-way trade turnover of US$18 billion.

Malaysian Minister of Foreign Affairs Senator Zambry Abdul Kadir paid an official visit to Việt Nam and co-chaired the seventh meeting of the Joint Commission for Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation with Minister Sơn from July 19-20.

During his talks with Minister Sơn in Hà Nội on Thursday morning, the guest expressed his pleasure to visit Việt Nam for the first time as Foreign Minister and highly appreciated Việt Nam's successful control of the COVID-19 pandemic and rapid socio-economic recovery and development.

He affirmed Malaysia always attaches importance to and wishes to develop the strategic partnership with Việt Nam.

At the seventh meeting of the Việt Nam-Malaysia Joint Commission for Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, the two sides focused on reviewing and evaluating the implementation of agreements by senior leaders, including the 2021-25 action plan to implement Việt Nam - Malaysia strategic partnership.

The two sides agreed to propose to the prime ministers of the two countries a number of major orientations to boost the strategic partnership in the future, including promoting high-level visits and contacts at all channels; strengthening people-to-people exchanges; and expanding defence and security cooperation.

They also vowed to limit the application of trade barriers, make good use of opportunities from regional trade agreements that both sides participate in, such as RCEP and CPTPP.

They pledged to foster cooperation in other important fields such as sea and ocean, oil and gas, education and training, labour, transportation, culture, sports, tourism, cooperation between localities, digital economy, artificial intelligence and renewable energy.

Discussing a number of international and regional issues of mutual concern, the two leaders agreed to continue to closely coordinate and actively support each other at multilateral forums; together with other ASEAN member countries to maintain solidarity and ASEAN's central role in solving strategic regional issues.

At the end of the meeting, the two foreign ministers agreed on the Memorandum of Understanding of the seventh meeting.

The two sides agreed to hold the eighth meeting of the Việt Nam-Malaysia Joint Commission for Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation at a convenient time for both sides in Malaysia in 2025. – VNS