Hanoi (VNA) - National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue’s freshly concluded trip to Europe has helped promote the role of parliamentarydiplomacy in boosting socio-economic development and bettering COVID-19prevention and control, Chairman of the NA Committee for External Relations VuHai Ha told the Vietnam News Agency's reporter.

Hue arrived in Hanoi on September 12, concluding his trip to attend the 5th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament (WCSP5)in Austria and pay a working visit to the European Parliament, Belgium and an official visit to Finland fromSeptember 5-11.

While in Austria, besides multilateral activities, the top legislatordelivered important speeches at WCSP5 plenary and thematic sessions, showing Vietnam'sstance on international and regional issues as well as its developmentorientations.

He had 10 sidelines bilateral meetings with importantpartners such as Russia, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Italy, Mozambique,Cuba, Chile and the UK, during which they discussed measures to achieve post-pandemicsocio-economic recovery as soon as possible.

Hue also met with leaders of several United Nations agencies inVienna who all affirmed that parliament plays an important role in addressingglobal challenges.

During his trip, the NA Chairman also had meetings with thePresidents of the European Council (EC) and the European Parliament (EP), andleaders of Belgium and Finland.

They all emphasized that the parliamentary relationship is avery important channel, representing the will and aspirations of people, aswell as promoting cooperation between governments and connecting solidarity andfriendship among the peoples.

The EP President applauded Hue’s proposal toestablish a mechanism to strengthen the relationship between the EP and theNational Assembly of Vietnam.

Regarding vaccine diplomacy, Ha said that the Presidentof the European Council promised to provide an additional 500 million doses ofvaccines against COVID-19 to ASEAN countries, including Vietnam, in the comingtime.

Belgium and Slovakia also presented 200,000 doses of vaccine and pledgedto help transfer millions of doses to Vietnam. Many organizations, businessesand individuals also supported medical equipment and supplies, especially COVID-19test kits, with a total value of 1.028 trillion VND (45.1 million USD). Inaddition, a number of contracts related to test kit production, and vaccineresearch and production have been signed.

Ha also stated that this trip was a very good opportunityfor the top legislator to discuss with overseas Vietnamese about policies relatedto them, affirming that the overseas Vietnamese community is an integral partof Vietnam./.