Ambassador Phạm Quang Vinh, former Deputy Foreign Minister and former Ambassador of Việt Nam to the US. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI – The visit of US President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to Việt Nam on September 10-11 will be an occasion for leaders of both countries to look back at the past 10-year journey since the establishment of their comprehensive partnership, said Ambassador Phạm Quang Vinh, former deputy foreign minister and former ambassador of Việt Nam to the US.

In an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency ahead of the US President’s visit, the veteran diplomat said the visit would also be an occasion for the two sides to create a new impetus and define the orientation for the relations in the next decades.

He expected that the two sides would expand cooperation to other fields, such as digital transformation and green transition, besides education-training and war aftermath settlement, in which he believes great room still remains for enhancing collaboration.

The ambassador stressed that the past decade had seen strong and comprehensive development of the Việt Nam-US relations.

The two sides had been strengthening mutual understanding, building trust and creating a stable and long-term framework for win-win cooperation. Leaders of the two countries had made many mutual visits, creating the political foundation for bilateral ties to grow.  

He noted that development had been seen across all pillars of the bilateral relationship, from politics-diplomacy to economy, trade, investment, science-technology, and education, and in both bilateral and multilateral frameworks.

Vinh particularly highlighted economic-trade collaboration as the bright spot in bilateral ties. He cited statistics that show two-way trade surged almost four times 10 years after the establishment of the Việt Nam-US comprehensive partnership, from US$35-36 billion in 2013 to over $123 billion at present. 

“I think that the talks between Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng and President Biden (in the upcoming visit) will further deepen the guiding principle of bilateral relations which is to develop the ties based on respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and political institutions, mutual understanding, equal and win-win cooperation, and in the spirit of putting aside the past, overcoming differences and promoting similarities towards the future,” Ambassador Vinh said. – VNS