Bringing Vietnam - China relations to new heights

President Tran Dai Quang's visit to China is expected to bring Vietnam-China relations to increasingly healthy and stable development.

At the invitation of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping, President Tran Dai Quang and his wife, along with a high-ranking delegation of our country, will this morning (May 11) pay a State visit to the People's Republic of China and attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation from May 11 to 15.

This is the first State visit to China by the President after the 12th National Party Congress, the 14th National Assembly elected a new leadership, and the first visit to China by Comrade Tran Dai Quang as President.

This is the first visit to China by comrade Tran Dai Quang as President (Photo: VNA)

Vietnam and China are two neighboring countries with a long-standing traditional friendship. Since the normalization of relations in 1991, Vietnam-China relations have developed rapidly. Recognizing the importance of a stable and friendly relationship between the two socialist neighbors, senior leaders of both sides have regularly met, exchanged views and continuously strengthened the framework of bilateral relations.

Notable among them were the official visit to China by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (January 2017) and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (September 2016); the meeting between President Tran Dai Quang and General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping on the occasion of the APEC Summit in Peru (November 2016); the official friendly visit to Vietnam by Chairman of the National People's Congress of China Zhang Dejiang (November 2016) and many visits at the level of Deputy Prime Ministers and State Councilors.

Through the meetings, the two countries' senior leaders agreed to consistently respect each other, enhance strategic exchanges, increase political trust, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and properly control and handle existing disagreements and emerging issues. Thereby promoting the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership to continue to develop healthily and stably.

A special highlight in the relationship between the two countries is economic, trade and investment cooperation. In recent years, China has always been Vietnam's leading trade partner. Bilateral trade turnover continues to grow, while Vietnam's trade deficit with China tends to decrease. In particular, bilateral trade turnover in 2016 reached more than 72 billion USD, an increase of 7.9% compared to 2015. The two countries are striving to achieve the goal of bringing bilateral trade turnover to 100 billion USD by 2017.

Regarding investment, by March this year, China had 1,615 investment projects in Vietnam, with a capital of more than 11 billion USD, ranking 8th out of 116 countries and territories investing in Vietnam. China's investment is mainly concentrated in the fields of processing, manufacturing, production, distribution of electricity, gas, water... China wants to promote cooperation in production capacity, cross-border economic cooperation...

Along with that, the exchange and cooperation between Vietnam and China in the fields of education and training, culture, sports and tourism have been actively promoted. In particular, the two sides have organized many art performances, cultural and sports exchanges, and effectively implemented the "Agreement on Sports Cooperation". Every year, China provides 150 full scholarships and 100 partial scholarships to Vietnam. At the same time, China is a large tourism market, leading in the number of foreign tourists to Vietnam. In 2016, there were 2.7 million Chinese tourists to Vietnam and 2.2 million Vietnamese tourists to China, ranking first among ASEAN countries. In the first 3 months of this year alone, there were nearly 950,000 Chinese tourists to Vietnam (an increase of 163% over the same period last year).

People-to-people exchanges between Vietnam and China have been taking place vigorously, contributing to enhancing mutual understanding between the people of the two countries. The two sides have organized 16 Vietnam-China Youth Friendship Meetings, most recently the 3rd Vietnam-China Youth Festival (November 2016) was successfully held in Vietnam. Relations between localities of the two sides have also been strengthened in many diverse forms such as exchanging delegations at all levels, signing cooperation documents...

In particular, during his visit to China this time, President Tran Dai Quang will attend the Belt and Road International Cooperation Summit held in Beijing. After three years of launching the Belt and Road Initiative, China has made a number of important strides, mobilizing international support, preparing finance, legal frameworks and implementing specific projects, laying the foundation for concretizing the initiative into an official cooperation framework with the first step being the organization of the Belt and Road International Cooperation Summit. This forum has the theme “Belt and Road: Cooperation for Common Prosperity”.

President Tran Dai Quang visited China and attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to maintain the momentum of development of relations between the two Parties and countries, strengthen political trust between the two countries' senior leaders; promote the improvement of the effectiveness of cooperation in the fields of economics, trade, investment... and increase information about Vietnam's investment attraction policies for the Chinese business community. Thereby, consolidating the high-level common awareness of maintaining peace and stability, promoting negotiations on maritime issues to achieve substantial progress. At the same time, it demonstrates Vietnam's goodwill towards initiatives and efforts to promote international integration and regional connectivity.

President Tran Dai Quang's state visit to China is expected to continue to strengthen political trust, bringing the Vietnam-China relationship to increasingly healthy, stable and in-depth development, bringing practical benefits to each country, for peace and prosperity in the region and the world./.

According to VOV