Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh wishes to see better performances in five areas of cooperation between Vietnam and Australia as the two countries are expected to enhance their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership. 

PM Chinh expressed his expectation while attending the Vietnam - Australia Business Forum in Melbourne on Tuesday, as part of his trip to Australia starting on Monday to attend the 2024 ASEAN - Australia Special Summit and pay an official visit to the Oceanian country.

Addressing the forum that drew some 200 enterprises from Vietnam and Australia, the Vietnamese government leader revealed that during his visit to Australia, slated for March 7 to 9 following the summit, the two countries are scheduled to announce the upgrade of their bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

In early April last year, during the visit of Australian Governor-General David Hurley to Vietnam, Vietnamese State President Vo Van Thuong and his guest agreed to elevate their bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership when the timing is appropriate.

Prime Minister Chinh highlighted the positive progress of Vietnam and Australia's cooperation across various areas like trade and investment in recent years.

However, he emphasized that these achievements, while commendable, still fall short of the full potential and opportunities available for both countries to work together.

Chinh expressed his expectation that the two nations will achieve better results in five cooperation fields: political trust; economic, trade and investment; science, technology and innovation; education, training, culture and people-to-people exchanges; and tourism and labor.

He called on investors, businesses, and trade associations of both countries to further promote their cooperation, pledging that the two governments will facilitate such collaboration, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

Over time, many Australian products have become popular with consumers in the 100 million-strong Vietnamese market, while Vietnam has gained advantages in a lot of exports such as farm produce, electronics, and garments, he told the forum.

Besides their traditional growth drivers such as investment, export, and consumption, both sides should promote cooperation in new driving forces, such as digital transformation, green transformation, circular economy, knowledge-based economy, and sharing economy based on innovation and science and technology, the PM suggested. 

During the cooperation process, the two sides will work together to remove difficulties and obstacles that may arise, Chinh said.

He affirmed that the Vietnamese government constantly protects the legal and legitimate rights and interests of any business and investor, including those from Australia.

The forum heard a number of business representatives from both countries present their plans for cooperation with their partners.

At the event, PM Chinh witnessed the announcement of the launch of the new direct flight route linking Melbourne and Hanoi by Vietjet Air, a Vietnamese budget carrier, with the first flight to take off on June 3.

He also saw the exchanges of cooperative agreements between businesses of both countries.

Earlier the same day, PM Chinh cut the ribbon to inaugurate the Australia - Vietnam Policy Institute at Melbourne-based RMIT University.

Vietnam and Australia, whose diplomatic ties were set up in 1973, entered a comprehensive partnership in 2009.

The two sides lifted their relationship to an enhanced comprehensive partnership in 2015 before further elevating it to a strategic partnership in March 2018.

Currently, Australia is Vietnam’s seventh-largest trading partner and Vietnam is Australia’s 10th-largest commercial partner.

Australia, as one of Vietnam’s key bilateral partners, provides the largest non-refundable official development assistance to the Southeast Asian country and offers many scholarship programs to its students.

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