Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Bùi Thanh Sơn presents the Friendship Order to Chinese Ambassador Xiong Bo. VNA/VNS Photo Văn Điệp

HÀ NỘI — Chinese Ambassador Xiong Bo has been awarded the Friendship Order of the Vietnamese State for his active and effective contributions to promoting the Việt Nam-China Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership during his term in Việt Nam.

Authorised by President Tô Lâm, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Bùi Thanh Sơn presented the order to Xiong at a reception for him in Hà Nội on Tuesday.

Deputy PM Sơn appreciated the diplomat's contributions to the comprehensive and substantive development of the relationship between the two Parties and the two countries, which is reflected in the regular high-level strategic exchanges and contacts at all levels; the substantial progress in result-oriented cooperation across the fields, particularly in economy-trade-investment, development strategy connectivity, and collaboration in new areas like digital transformation and green development; and active people-to-people exchanges; and provision of COVID-19 vaccine for Việt Nam.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, China was one of the countries that provided the most COVID-19 vaccines to Việt Nam, thereby helping the nation effectively control and safely adapt to the pandemic and promote the reopening of the economy, he continued.

The Deputy PM and FM emphasised that in the coming time, the Government and the Foreign Ministry of Việt Nam will continue to work with relevant ministries, branches and localities to speed up the effective implementation of important common perceptions of the two sides' high-ranking leaders, especially the joint statements reached during the recent mutual visits of the top leaders of the two Parties and two countries.

For his part, the Chinese Ambassador expressed his sincere thanks to leaders of the Party, State, Government, National Assembly of Việt Nam, as well as ministries, agencies and localities of Việt Nam for supporting and creating favourable conditions for him to fulfil his duties during the tenure.

He affirmed that he will always carry with him good memories and feelings about the country and people of Việt Nam and continue to actively contribute to building the China-Việt Nam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, regardless of his position.

At the reception, Sơn and Xiong underlined the importance of the Việt Nam-China relationship in the overall foreign policy of each country, and expressed their delight at the historical milestones in the development of the relationship between the two Parties and the two countries in recent years.

Notably, the two sides have deepened and elevated the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, agreed to build a community of shared futures that carries strategic significance and successfully arranged mutual visits by the General Secretaries of the two Parties, most recently the State visit to China by General Secretary and President Tô Lâm from August 18-20. — VNS