Speaker of Australian House of Representatives to visit Vietnam

ABO/VNA – A high-ranking delegation of the Australian House of Representatives, led by its Speaker Tony Smith, will pay an official visit to Vietnam from July 23-25.

Chairwoman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan (L) shakes hands with Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives Tony Smith during her visit to Australia in 2017 (Photo: VNA).

The visit will be made at the invitation of Chairwoman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

Vietnam and Australia officially established diplomatic relations on February 26, 1973. Through the decades, Vietnam and Australia have built a strong partnership with the establishment of comprehensive partnership in 2009. They signed a declaration on enhancing the bilateral comprehensive partnership in 2015.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull signed a joint statement on the establishment of the Vietnam-Australia Strategic Partnership following their talks in Canberra, Australia, on March 15, 2018, as part of the former’s official visit.

Trade and economic partnership is an outstanding example in bilateral ties, with trade revenue increasing 200 times since 1990 to reach 6.46 billion USD in 2017 and expected to hit 10 billion USD in 2020.

Australia currently ranks 19th out of 116 foreign investors in Vietnam with total investment of 1.82 billion USD in 396 projects. The two nations already signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and actively engage in negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Australia has been a regular ODA provider of Vietnam in various fields, including infrastructure, poverty reduction, innovation, climate change response, gender equality and startup support.

In tourism, Australian tourists to Vietnam have increased through years, reaching over 370,400 in 2017, making it one of the 10 leading source markets of Vietnam’s tourism.

Australia is the fourth most favourite destination of Vietnamese students with about 30,000 Vietnamese students. Meanwhile, Vietnam is also one of the five popular options for study of Australian students.

Along with economic cooperation, Vietnam and Australia have enjoyed effective affiliation in all fields of politics-diplomacy, security-defence, science-technology and culture-education.

(Source: VNA)