At the invitation of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Chinese Premier Li Qiang paid an official visit to Vietnam from October 12-14, 2024. This is the first time Premier Li Qiang has visited Vietnam since he took office in March 2023.
Taking place in the context of the two countries' developing relations, the visit continues to be an important new milestone in the bilateral relations, contributing to making the Vietnam-China friendly neighborly relationship, Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership and Community of Shared Future of strategic significance increasingly develop, deepen, comprehensively and sustainably.
In recent times, the world and regional situation has had many complex and unpredictable changes, but with the attention and close direction of the senior leaders of the two Parties and two countries, together with the joint efforts of all levels, sectors and people of the two countries, the Vietnam - China Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership has developed well overall, achieving many important and substantive results in the direction of "6 more": Higher political trust; more substantive defense - security cooperation; deeper substantive cooperation; more solid social foundation; closer multilateral coordination; better controlled and resolved disagreements.
Since the beginning of 2024, high-level exchanges and contacts have continued to take place in a vibrant manner, in flexible forms, both through Party, State and people-to-people channels. In particular, the State visit to China by General Secretary and President To Lam last August was a particularly important foreign policy activity between the two countries this year.
The two sides continue to cooperate effectively and substantially in many areas. Vietnam maintains its position as the largest trading partner in ASEAN and China's fifth largest trading partner in terms of national criteria. In the first 8 months of 2024, bilateral import-export turnover reached 130.78 billion USD (up 25% over the same period). From now until the end of 2024, with the strong improvement in trade in the first half of the year, it is forecasted that Vietnam-China import-export turnover will approach the 200 billion USD mark.
In terms of investment, in the first 8 months of 2024, China ranked 3rd with registered capital reaching nearly 1.7 billion USD, but ranked first in the number of newly licensed projects with 662 projects. By the end of August 2024, China invested 29 billion USD in Vietnam, ranking 6th out of 148 countries and territories investing in Vietnam with 4,865 projects.
Prime Minister Li Qiang's visit takes place at a very special time for Vietnam-China relations, as the two sides are looking towards the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations (January 18, 1950 - January 18, 2025).
During the visit, the leaders of the two countries are expected to focus on discussing specific measures, actively promoting the expansion and improvement of the effectiveness and quality of cooperation areas, deepening substantive cooperation, achieving many practical results, and bringing benefits to the people of the two countries.
