President Biden’s visit to create impetus for Vietnam-US ties: Ambassador

Hanoi, September 8 (VNA) – The visit of US President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to Vietnam on September 10-11 will be an occasion for leaders of both countries to look back at the past 10-year journey since the establishment of their comprehensive partnership, said Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh, former Deputy Foreign Minister and former Ambassador of Vietnam to the US.

In an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency ahead of the US President’s visit, the veteran diplomat said the visit is also an occasion for the two sides to create a new impetus and define the orientation for the relations in the next decades.

He expected that the two sides will expand cooperation to other fields, such as digital transformation and green transition, besides education-training and war aftermath settlement, in which he believes great room still remains for enhancing collaboration.

The ambassador stressed that the past decade has seen strong and comprehensive development of the Vietnam-US relations.

The two sides have been strengthening mutual understanding, building trust and creating a stable and long-term framework for win-win cooperation. Leaders of the two countries have made many mutual visits, creating the political foundation for bilateral ties to grow.  

He noted that development has been seen across all pillars of the bilateral relationship, from politics-diplomacy to economy, trade, investment, science-technology, and education, and in both bilateral and multilateral frameworks.

Vinh particularly highlighted economic-trade collaboration as the bright spot in bilateral ties. He cited statistics that show two-way trade surged almost four times 10 years after the establishment of the Vietnam-US comprehensive partnership, from 35-36 billion USD in 2013 to over 123 billion USD at present.

“I think that the talks between Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and President Biden (in the upcoming visit) will further deepen the guiding principle of bilateral relations which is to develop the ties based on respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and political institutions, mutual understanding, equal and win-win cooperation, and in the spirit of putting aside the past, overcoming differences and promoting similarities towards the future,” Ambassador Vinh said./.