Ambassador Đỗ Hoàng Long. — VNA/VNS Photo

SOFIA — Ambassador Đỗ Hoàng Long, representing Việt Nam in Bulgaria, emphasised the significance of the official visit to Việt Nam by Speaker of the National Assembly of Bulgaria Rosen Dimitrov Jeliazkov from January 5-9, during an exclusive interview recently granted to the Vietnam News Agency.

Ambassador Long underscored that this marks the first visit by a high-ranking Bulgarian leader to Việt Nam in over a decade, following Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev's visit in October 2013. Notably, it is deemed a reciprocal visit following the official Bulgaria visit by Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Vương Đình Huệ in September last year.

This demonstrates the appreciation and sentiment that the Bulgarian State and people always extend to Việt Nam as a traditional, reliable, and loyal friend and one of the most important partners in Southeast Asia, he said, adding that the visit will contribute to opening up opportunities to enhance bilateral cooperation both bilaterally and multilaterally, towards celebrations for the 75th anniversary of Việt Nam-Bulgaria diplomatic ties.

With the above significance, the visit will, on one hand, focus on further nurturing the already robust political relations between the two countries through the Party, State, Government and people-to-people channels. On the other hand, it will present an opportunity for both sides to engage in discussions on global and regional issues of mutual concern; intensify substantial and effective bilateral ties, particularly in areas of their strengths such as trade-investment, education, health care, culture, tourism, labour, and locality-to-locality cooperation.

Through a busy agenda between the Bulgarian delegation and Vietnamese high-ranking leaders, ministries and agencies, he said the Vietnamese side will affirm its consistent foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, multilateralisation and diversification of ties for peace, cooperation and development. It will also convey Việt Nam's message of being a reliable and responsible partner in the international community, seeking continued invaluable support from the European country on issues of shared interest, he added.

The ambassador highlighted the two countries' good friendship and cooperation since Việt Nam and Bulgaria set up their diplomatic ties in 1950.

Addressing cooperation between the two legislatures, he underlined efforts to facilitate visits, hold conferences, and engage in thematic discussions. The focus is on sharing information and experience in parliamentary activities and consulting each other at global and regional conferences and inter-parliamentary forums.

In the realms of culture and tourism, both nations are actively selecting cultural and art activities to collaborate on, such as Cultural Day, art exhibitions, film week, music performances and food fairs, contributing to stepping up cultural and people-to-people exchanges. They will also make it easier for firms to bring skilled workers in tourism sector to each other for long-term or seasonal work.

Universities from both countries have regularly engaged in the exchange of lecturers, students and graduates; scientific research, and holding international workshops on various fields of strength such as health care, biotechnology, agriculture, environment and natural resource management, he said.

Ambassador Long also saw ample opportunities to further elevate bilateral ties to a strategic partnership and hoped that the upcoming visit will yield consensus on the progress of cooperation documents to effectively develop joint efforts between the two legislatures. — VNS