Vietnamese Ambassador to Singapore Mai Phước Dũng. — VNA/VNS Photo Lê Dương

SINGAPORE — The Việt Nam-Singapore relationship is now at its prime with deep political trust, close economic and investment cooperation, and strong people-to-people exchange, Vietnamese Ambassador to Singapore Mai Phước Dũng has said.

In an interview recently granted to the Vietnam News Agency on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties (August 1, 1973-2023), the diplomat said since 2020, Singapore has always been among the biggest foreign investors in Việt Nam with a stable two-way trade despite the global political-economic troubles.

The two countries have also regularly facilitated the exchange of high-ranking delegations and signed a bilateral defence cooperation agreement to pave the way for specific cooperation programmes. They have been working effectively together in new security fields, such as cyber security and trans-border crime prevention, toward stepping up collaboration in pillar and promising areas such as green economy, digital economy, digital transformation, and cyber security.

Since the second half of last year, the two Governments and foreign ministries have held activities celebrating the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties and the 10th anniversary of strategic partnership between the two nations, which draw the attention of the public and businesses.

Apart from visits by Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính in February and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong later this year, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bùi Thanh Sơn in July and Singaporean Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng in July, a number of activities are also scheduled, including the Spotlight Vietnam to be held by Singapore’s Global Cultural Alliance in Hà Nội and HCM City City in October with about 200 Singaporean entrepreneurs and athletes expected to take part, and the Việt Nam Night held by the Singapore Book Council under the auspices of the Vietnamese Embassy and the Vietnamese community in Singapore.

The Vietnamese embassy plans to work with relevant agencies to popularise Vietnamese goods and tourism in the island state.

Commenting on the potential joint work at multilateral forums, Dũng said both Việt Nam and Singapore are members of various multilateral mechanisms, particularly those within the framework of the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Both countries basically share the same stance on international issues and work towards building regional and global order in accordance with international law and global standards.

He suggested that the two nations should affirm the supreme role of international law in building regional and international order. Every action of nations in international relations must comply with the basic principles and provisions of international law.

They should also strive to ensure the unity and centrality of ASEAN in regional security issues, as well as contribute to shaping multilateral economic cooperation mechanisms, especially new multilateral agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), based on openness and inclusiveness, for the sake of peace, stability and mutual benefits, he said.

In order to further deepen bilateral ties, Ambassador Dũng said he hopes that the two countries will focus on concrete tasks, such as effectively continuing to carry out existing mechanisms, especially the annual political consultation to discuss global and bilateral issues where differences still exist, thus avoiding unnecessary misunderstandings.

Besides fields of strength and shared vision, he proposed bolstering cooperation in green economy and digital economy, materialising the Memorandum of Understanding on the Green-Digital Economic Partnership reached during PM Phạm Minh Chính visit to Singapore earlier this year, and joint work in sci-tech and renewable energy.

In politics, he suggested focusing on cooperation in human resources training and administrative reform in a modern and effective manner, and coordinating stances on regional and global issues, especially those directly impacting Việt Nam and Singapore.

In national defence-security, he called for sharing information on cyber and transnational crimes, conducting pilot studies on sharing basic citizen data to facilitate the movement of citizens of both countries and ensure national security. Further attention should be also paid to people-to-people exchanges to raise mutual understanding of each other.

At present, there are about 20,000 Vietnamese living, studying and working in Singapore, half of them students. Over the past years, they have served as a bridge to popularise the Vietnamese culture and further reinforce ties between the two nations, the diplomat said. — VNS