Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc during a phone conversation with his Malaysian counterpart Muhyiddin Yassin. — VNA/VNS Photo Thống Nhất

HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc had a phone conversation with his Malaysian counterpart Muhyiddin Yassin on Tuesday to discuss bilateral co-operation, regional and international issues of mutual interest in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Phúc congratulated Yassin on being appointed as the eighth Prime Minister of Malaysia, appreciating the measures the Malaysian Government has taken to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

He also shared Việt Nam's experience on pandemic prevention and economic development in a new normal state, welcomed the two countries' co-operation and support to repatriate citizens in the past. He thanked Malaysia's support of Việt Nam's initiatives and ASEAN's overall efforts to respond to the pandemic.

Yassin congratulated Việt Nam on its successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic, appreciating Việt Nam's initiatives and its role in leading ASEAN's joint efforts to reduce its socio-economic impact of the pandemic, in the spirit of the theme "Mounting and proactively adapting", which was clearly reflected in the ASEAN Chairmanship Statement 2020 on February 14 as well as the ASEAN and ASEAN + 3 online summits on April 14 on responding to COVID-19.

The two agreed to further strengthen bilateral relations through maintaining contacts, high-level exchanges, co-ordinating early on organising periodic bilateral co-operation mechanisms, including the sixth meeting of the Joint Committee on Economic, Scientific and Technical Co-operation, soon reaching and approving the Action Programme to implement the Strategic Partnership for the period 2020-25. In the context that the region and the world economy face many challenges, the two sides also agreed to make more efforts to soon reach the target of two-way trade turnover of US$15 billion, and continue to promote two-way investment  so that the two countries continue to be among the top 10 economic partners of each other.

They agreed to continue strengthening the co-ordination and mutual support at multilateral forums. Yassin pledged to continue to co-operate closely and support Việt Nam to successfully assume the role of ASEAN Chairmanship 2020 and non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the term 2020-21, affirming that he would participate and contribute to the success of the upcoming online 36th ASEAN Summit. In response, Phúc strongly support Malaysia to successfully organise the APEC Summit in the future.

They also emphasised the importance of maintaining peace, stability, freedom and maritime and aviation security in the South China Sea (called East Sea by Việt Nam), in particular not to affect economic and trade activities, agreed to work together to preserve the unity and common stance of ASEAN, promote negotiations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC) essentially, in accordance with international law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982. — VNS