On the evening of July 21, at the Government Office, Politburo Member, Prime Minister Le Minh Hung had his first phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
In the exchange, Prime Minister Le Minh Hung affirmed that Vietnam always considers Canada an important partner in foreign policy and is pleased with the positive and comprehensive developments of the two countries' relations after nearly 10 years of establishing the Comprehensive Partnership framework.
Prime Minister Le Minh Hung assessed that the effectiveness of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) between the two countries has turned the two sides into important trade and investment partners with two-way trade turnover doubling in the last 5 years.
Prime Minister Le Minh Hung said that the relationship between the two countries still has a lot of room and potential to expand and develop more substantively and effectively, towards raising the level of relations in the coming time.
In that spirit, the Prime Minister requested the two sides to closely coordinate to realize a number of specific priorities such as strengthening delegation exchanges at all levels and channels, prioritizing promoting visits by senior leaders of the two countries; Canada continues to open markets for Vietnamese goods, especially agricultural, forestry and fishery products; encourage Canadian businesses to increase investment in key sectors and projects on energy, green economy, and circular economy in Vietnam; establish bilateral cooperation mechanisms on law enforcement; strengthen cooperation in training high-quality human resources in industries such as artificial intelligence, quantum, and semiconductor; and continue to closely and effectively coordinate at multilateral forums.
For his part, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney affirmed that Vietnam is a key and important partner of Canada in the ASEAN region and the Indo-Pacific region.
Regarding bilateral relations, Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to soon upgrade the framework of relations between the two countries to a new height and requested the two sides' agencies to closely coordinate to prepare for this important event.
Prime Minister Mark Carney wished the two sides to closely coordinate and promote common interests in areas such as sustainable and inclusive development, energy, aerospace, agriculture, food safety, science and technology, high-quality human resource training...; and at the same time promote the possibility of establishing direct flights between the two countries, encouraging strengthening people-to-people exchanges to create a solid social foundation for the development of relations between the two countries.
Prime Minister Mark Carney thanked Vietnam for its support in the negotiation process of the Canada-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement; emphasized Vietnam's important bridging role as Chairman of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and expressed his desire to continue to cooperate closely in efforts to connect CPTPP with other partners.
On this occasion, Prime Minister Mark Carney respectfully conveyed his invitation to General Secretary and President To Lam to pay an official visit to Canada soon. Prime Minister Le Minh Hung respectfully thanked Prime Minister Mark Carney for his invitation, requested the two sides to continue to exchange through diplomatic channels to arrange the visit, and at the same time conveyed his invitation to Prime Minister Mark Carney to visit Vietnam at the end of 2026.
