Vietnam Ready to Share Development Experience with Myanmar

Vietnamese President To Lam met with Myanmar's President Min Aung Hlaing on September 5, expressing Vietnam's readiness to share its national development experience and enhance cooperation across various sectors. The meeting is seen as a significant step towards strengthening bilateral ties. During the talks, President To Lam highly appreciated the efforts of the Myanmar government in implementing measures to promote stability, reconciliation, dialogue, economic development, and improve people's lives. President Min Aung Hlaing emphasized that Myanmar values its traditional friendship with Vietnam and wishes to learn from Vietnam's development experience and further enhance cooperation, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both leaders agreed to continuously strengthen political trust through increased exchanges at all levels, including high-level visits. They also agreed to continue to leverage defense and security cooperation, making it a pillar of the bilateral relationship, and reaffirmed the commitment not to allow any individual or organization to use their territory against the other. In the economic, trade, and investment sectors, President Min Aung Hlaing affirmed that Myanmar will pay attention to addressing difficulties and creating a favorable environment for Vietnamese businesses to invest and operate long-term and stably. He expressed his desire for Vietnamese enterprises to actively participate and expand cooperation with Myanmar enterprises in areas where Vietnam has strengths and Myanmar has needs. He highly appreciated the cooperation implemented by both sides in education-training, culture, and people-to-people exchanges, and proposed that both sides deepen cultural connections and promote exchanges among different strata of the population. President To Lam emphasized Vietnam's readiness to share its experience in national development, ensuring economic security, promoting sustainable growth, macroeconomic stability, policy formulation, and socio-economic management with a people-centered approach, combining internal strengths with proactive international integration and effectively leveraging external resources for national development. Both leaders agreed to increase exchanges at regional and international cooperation mechanisms, including ASEAN and sub-Mekong region mechanisms. President Min Aung Hlaing thanked Vietnam for its consistent support for Myanmar in its nation-building and development process, as well as within ASEAN and at regional and international forums. Both sides emphasized the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, and freedom of navigation and overflight in the East Sea, and resolving differences and disputes peacefully, in accordance with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 1982. They also agreed to strengthen exchanges and share experiences in strategic areas of the region such as transport infrastructure connectivity among countries in the sub-Mekong region, including Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar, and cooperation in sustainable management and use of water resources. On the same day, September 5, Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Thanh Man met with President Min Aung Hlaing at the National Assembly House, sharing views on the role of the two legislative bodies in the political systems and development processes of each country. Both sides agreed that parliamentary diplomacy plays an important role in bilateral relations, contributing to consolidating political trust, promoting and supervising the implementation of high-level agreements, thereby making positive contributions to peace, stability, and cooperation in the region and the world. Chairman Tran Thanh Man proposed that the Myanmar government pay attention to resolving and removing difficulties faced by Vietnamese businesses investing and operating in Myanmar, creating conditions for these businesses to contribute positively to Myanmar's socio-economic development. Both leaders agreed to promote the effective implementation of the Cooperation Agreement signed between the two parliaments and leverage the role of the legislative bodies in creating a favorable legal framework and effectively supervising the progress of implementing high-level agreements, contributing jointly to the Vietnam-Myanmar Comprehensive Cooperation Partnership. Myanmar's President visited Vietnam officially from September 4-6. This is his first visit to Vietnam after Myanmar completed its general election in January and formed a new government. It is also the highest-level exchange of delegations between the two sides since 2019. Vietnam and Myanmar established diplomatic relations on May 28, 1975, and upgraded them to a Comprehensive Cooperation Partnership in August 2017. Vietnamese Ambassador to Myanmar Nguyen Anh Duc stated that President Min Aung Hlaing's visit will contribute to consolidating traditional friendly relations, strengthening political trust between the two countries, and promoting the expansion of bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Source: VnExpress