National Assembly Chairman Trần Thanh Mẫn and President of the Australian Senate Sue Lines pose a photo before the meeting. VNA/VNS Photo

HCM City - President of the Australian Senate Sue Lines left Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, concluding her successful seven-day visit to Vietnam.

During her stay, Lines and her entourage laid flowers at the Hò Chí Minh in Hà Nội to pay tribute to the Vietnamese leader.

She received a red-carpet welcome ceremony hosted by National Assembly Chairman Trần Thanh Mẫn, who held talks with her after that.

Party General Secretary and State President Tô Lâm, and Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính had meetings with the Australian Senate President.

She attended the second Việt Nam -Australia high-level forum, themed “Enhancing Economic Engagement, a Shared Vision for Prosperity,” and had a working session with leaders of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

She visited the northern provinces of Bắc Ninh and Ninh Bình, HCM City and Hà Nội, while speaking to the Vietnamese media on matters related to her visit as well as cooperation between the two countries, including parliamentary collaboration.

Lines's first visit to Việt Nam as the Australian Senate President showed the goodwill and wish to reinforce bilateral parliamentary cooperation to match the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.

During her official visit, the two sides agreed that Việt Nam and Australia reached many great achievements over the last 50 years with important milestones such as the establishment of a comprehensive partnership in 2009 and a strategic partnership in 2018 and the upgrading of the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership in March 2024 during Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính's official visit to Australia.

This affirms that political trust and mutual understanding between the two sides are increasingly strengthened, especially through maintaining regular delegation exchanges and high-level contacts on all channels, including the parliamentary channel.

The two countries have effectively maintained over 20 bilateral cooperation mechanisms with many positive results. Economic and trade cooperation has been kept stable, with two-way trade reaching nearly US$14 billion in 2023. The two countries are currently among each other's top 10 trade partners.

In order to concretise and further deepen their Việt Nam - Australia comprehensive strategic partnership, the two sides agreed to continue to strengthen cooperation on all channels, maintain existing and newly established cooperation mechanisms with innovations in forms and content, effectively and substantively implement existing agreements between the two countries, co-ordinate to build the Action Programme to implement the Việt Nam - Australia comprehensive strategic partnership for the 2024-2028 period, focusing on promoting people-to-people exchange, and enhancing practical cooperation among localities and friendship associations of the two countries.

The Vietnamese and Australian leaders agreed to continue promoting dialogue and information sharing, enhancing mutual understanding and trust, deepening defence and security cooperation, promoting economic cooperation to achieve higher efficiency, including stepping up investment and trade promotion, striving to soon bring bilateral trade to US$20 billion and doubling two-way investment in the next 2-3 years. At the same time, the two countries will explore new cooperation areas with potential such as green economy, digital economy, circular economy, digital transformation, science-technology, and innovation.

Việt Nam hoped that Australia will continue to support Việt Nam in participating in UN peacekeeping operations, and coordinate effectively with Việt Nam in implementing the Joint Statement on Practical Actions to Respond to Climate Change issued in November 2021, while supporting the Southeast Asian nation in carrying out programmes to respond to climate change, develop sustainable livelihoods for the Mekong Delta, and deal with drought in the Central Highlands, central and southern localities.

Along with the positive development of the Việt Nam-Australian relations, the leaders affirmed that cooperation between the Vietnamese National Assembly and the Australian Parliament has been continuously expanded.

The two sides have been actively coordinating to implement the cooperation agreement signed between the two legislatures in 2022, while maintaining consultations and mutual support at multilateral parliamentary forums. In particular, the recent high-level visits between parliamentary leaders have contributed to creating new momentum for the relationship between the two legislative bodies and between the two countries as a whole.

The two sides will increase contacts between leaders and officials of the National Assembly committees, parliamentarians and the Friendship Parliamentarians’ Groups of the two countries to exchange information and share experience in organising parliamentary activities, especially in building institutions, perfecting the legal system and supervising the enforcement of laws.

The two countries concurred to increase people-to-people exchange and cooperation among the two countries' localities, contributing to enhancing mutual understanding between their people.

The Australia side pledged to provide favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in Australia as well as the teaching of Vietnamese at Australian schools with a large number of Vietnamese students, thus promoting the active role of the Vietnamese community in Australia's development and the enhancement of bilateral relations. VNS