Vietnam’s newly-elected Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on April 6 received phone calls from his Cambodian and Laotian counterparts, the first having conversations with him since his inauguration one day earlier.
| Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on phone calls with Cambodian and Laotian counterparts. Photo: Quang Hieu/VGP |
Cambodia’s PM Samdech Techo Hun Sen and Lao PM Phankham Viphavanh called Chinh to discuss further cooperation in his next term.
At talk with Cambodian PM, Chinh emphasized on strenghtening the multifaceted cooperation that was reached by the two countries’ leaders.
The two PMs agreed to exchange experience in the fight against Covid-19 and boost the cooperation in border areas to both prevent the spread of the pandemic and keep crossborder goods flowing.
They reached consensus on joining hands at multilateral agendas and promoting the regional solidarity for promoting ASEAN Centrality. Chinh said Vietnam had supported Cambodia in hosting the 7th Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Leaders’ Summit in March and the 13th ASEM Summit (ASEM13).
Chinh invited Hun Sen to visit Vietnam at the convenient time and the Cambodia PM gave the same invitation to the Vietnamese counterpart.
Vietnam and Cambodia are the neighbors sharing more than 1,100 km of border.
In various official statements, both sides upheld the principles of “good neighborliness,” “traditional friendship,” and “comprehensive, sustainable and long-term cooperation”.
Linkages between the two countries have been expanded to all areas beyond political and security aspects. The two sides have agreed to speed up the border demarcation process which has completed nearly 90%.
Vietnam-Lao special ties
In the videoconferencing talk with Laotian PM, Chinh highlighted the “great” friendship and the comprehensive partnership between the two countries, enhancing the cooperation to better deal with common challenges.
They agreed to boost cooperation in various fields namely defense, security, trade, investment, transport, education, people-to-people relations, and twinning relations between localities, especially results at the 43th Vietnam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee.
The two sides committed to making good preparations for the 60th anniversary of the bilateral relations and the 45th anniversary of the friendship agreement in 2022.
Both the PMs exchanged the invitation to each country in the near future.
The Vietnam-Laos relations is called “special”. Lao media reported: “The bilateral cooperation ties in politics have climbed to new heights witnessed by the regular exchange of high level visits of leaders from the two parties and governments.”
The phrase “special relations” came into general use by both parties after 1976, and in July 1977, the signing of the Lao-Vietnamese Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation opened up a new era for the relationship.
Vietnam remains Laos’ third largest investor in the period 2016-20 with registered capital of US$4.2 billion, up 35% against 2010. In 2020, Vietnam’s investment capital to Lao rocketed by 130% on-year.
