Prime Minister welcomes Thailand's top legislator

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc hosted a reception for the President of the National Legislative Assembly of Thailand PornpetchWichitcholchai in Hanoi on August 14.

PM Phuc and President of the National Legislative Assembly of Thailand PornpetchWichitcholchai

The PM stated that he will lead a high-level Government delegation to visit Thailand from August 17-19 to exchange measures to promote bilateral friendship and cooperation, and improve the two countries’ strategic partnership.

Phuc Stated that Vietnam and Thailand have improved coordination in various fields from politics, security, and defense. Improvements have also been made to economics, trade, tourism, culture and society in recent times.

Thailand is the biggest trade partner of Vietnam in ASEAN with a two-way trade reaching US$12.5 billion in 2016. However, as Vietnam ran a trade deficit of US$5 billion with Thailand, Phuc hoped that the two countries would seek measures to balance trade and increase the bilateral trade to US$20 billion by 2020.

He also noted that The tourism cooperation has been able to cater to about 800,000 Vietnamese tourists visiting Thailand in 2016 while over 200,000 Thais can be accommodated when travelling to Vietnam.

The PM proposed that Thailand should open its markets for Vietnamese goods and create more favourable conditions for Vietnamese workers to work in the country as well as encourage Thai businesses to boost investment in Vietnam.

He also affirmed that Vietnam will address difficulties and create conditions for Thai investors to do business, he affirmed.

For his part, Pornpetch highlighted the sound relations between Vietnamese and Thai legislatures. The two sides have exchanged ways to boost bilateral cooperation at international forums.

Thailand and Vietnam are big trade and investment partners, he stated, adding that they have pushed cooperation in other fields such as security, defense, and marine patrol.

The connection of roads and railways between Thailand and Vietnam via third countries in the future will be an important factor to promote bilateral wide-ranging cooperation, including tourism with hopes that the two sides will strengthen measures to draw more Thai tourists to Vietnam.

(Source: NDO)