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| Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) and Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Rau at their meeting in Hanoi on March 16. (Photo: VNA) |
The PM thanked the Government and people of Poland for their donation of nearly 1.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine and 8 tonnes of medical equipment to help Vietnam overcome the pandemic and boost economic recovery, stressed that the move reflected sincere affection and deep attachment between the people of the two countries.
For his part, Rau said he is impressed with Vietnam’s socio-economic development achievements and stated that Poland wants to fortify its collaboration with the nation, the most important partner of Poland in Southeast Asia.
Regarding the Vietnam-Poland relationship, PM Chinh expressed his pleasure to see its positive progress over the past time and suggested the two sides increase the exchange of delegations, especially high-level ones and between sectors and localities, to boost political trust and mutual understanding, forming a basis for their bilateral cooperation expansion across all fields.
Poland has been Vietnam’s biggest trade partner in Central Eastern Europe for years and the two countries’ economic and trade cooperation maintains a strong growth momentum despite COVID-19, the Government leader said, adding that bilateral trade stood at a high level in 2021 and 2022, over 2.5 billion USD.
PM Chinh recommended Poland to create favourable conditions for Vietnam's agro-forestry-aquatic products to penetrate deeper into the Polish market; and encourage Polish businesses to step up investment in Vietnam’s pharmaceuticals, food processing, and manufacturing industries.
He proposed the European nation soon ratify the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA) to facilitate equal and mutually beneficial investment cooperation between the two countries; and urge the European Commission (EC) to soon remove its yellow card warning on Vietnam's seafood exports, meeting the interests of Polish and EU consumers and ensuring livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of workers in the Vietnamese fishing industry.
The host and guest exchanged views on a number of measures to beef up cooperation in education-training, culture-tourism, agriculture, and science-technology.
Rau pledged to encourage Polish ministries and branches to coordinate with the Vietnamese side to concretise the PM’s recommendations, contributing to making the bilateral cooperation more practical and effective.
He expressed his desire to strengthen the bilateral partnership in areas where Poland has strengths such as IT, smart cities building, green technology, and environmental protection.
The PM and the Polish minister agreed that the two countries should strengthen cooperation at multilateral and regional forums.
Regarding the East Sea issue, they emphasised the importance of ensuring security, safety and freedom of navigation and overflight in the East Sea as well as settling disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
PM Chinh thanked the Polish Government’s support for Vietnamese expatriates in Poland as well as Vietnamese people in Ukraine who evacuated to the country. He proposed Poland further create favourable conditions for the expatriate community to stabilise their lives and make practical and effective contributions to the fine traditional friendship between Vietnam and Poland.
On this occasion, Rau conveyed Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki’s invitation to PM Chinh to pay an official visit to Poland soon. The Vietnamese leader said he will arrange a trip to Poland at an appropriate time./.