Hanoi (VNA) – Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Chairman of its Commission for External Relations Le Hoai Trung hosted a reception in Hanoi on August 27 for Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs Alberto Van Klaveren.

The Chilean minister showed his strong impression of achievements that Vietnam has gained in the renewal cause under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam, with rising reputation and position in the region and the world.

Reviewing the development of the comprehensive partnership between Chile and Vietnam, Klaveren noted that two-way trade has increase rapidly in the recent decade to over 2 billion USD, making Chile the fourth largest trading partner of Vietnam in Latin America. Vietnam is currently the biggest trading partner of Chile among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with strong future growth prospects, he stated.

Klaveren affirmed that the Chilean Government always considers Vietnam as an important and leading partner in Asia-Pacific, and hopes to further promote and expand cooperation with Vietnam in the fields of trade, agriculture, defence, security, and customs, and via Vietnam broaden its collaboration with the Asia-Pacific region, especially ASEAN. He suggested the two sides continue to support each other at international forums and organisations, and coordinate with each other to prepare for high-level visits.

For his part, Trung showed his delight at the strong development of the traditional friendship between the two countries over the past 53 years, especially since the two countries set up their comprehensive partnership in 2007.

He affirmed that the Party and State of Vietnam always attach great importance to and want to foster the comprehensive partnership with Chile towards higher trust and stronger collaboration and connectivity, in which economic, trade and investment cooperation being the most important pillar.

Trung agreed with the Chilean minister’s proposals on creating favourable conditions for and supporting goods of the two countries to access each other’s market as well as assisting each other in connecting with the Latin American and ASEAN regions.

He asked the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote its connecting role in strengthening cooperation between the two countries on the foundation of optimising the bilateral free trade agreement and their membership of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), thus making bilateral economic and trade relations more extensive and effective.

൩ The Party official proposed the Chilean minister continue to support the development of relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam and important political parties of Chile as well as exchange and collaboration activities among localities and people of the two nations in the future./.