According to VNA, on the morning of October 2 (local time), after the official welcoming ceremony at the Presidential Palace, General Secretary and President To Lam and Irish President Michael Higgins co-chaired talks between the two countries' high-ranking delegations.
At the talks, President Michael Higgins warmly welcomed the first visit of General Secretary and President To Lam to Ireland; affirmed the importance of Vietnam's position and role in the Asia-Pacific region.
President Michael Higgins recalled his good impressions of his visit to Vietnam in 2016 and expressed his impression of Vietnam's achievements in socio-economic development, international integration, as well as efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in recent years.
General Secretary and President To Lam affirmed that Vietnam attaches importance to developing friendly relations and multifaceted cooperation with Ireland; highly appreciated the Irish Government's priority position for Vietnam in its development cooperation policy within the framework of the strategy "Global Ireland: Deploying activities in the Asia-Pacific region to 2025".
The General Secretary and President expressed his hope that Ireland will continue to provide development assistance to Vietnam in priority areas such as green growth, climate change response, environmental protection, information technology, digital transformation, and sustainable development.
The two leaders agreed to promote delegation exchanges at all levels, especially high-level ones, and actively implement existing cooperation mechanisms.
On this occasion, General Secretary and President To Lam happily announced that the Vietnamese Government has decided and is implementing procedures to establish a Vietnamese Embassy in Ireland.
The two leaders expressed their belief that this decision will open a new stage of development in bilateral relations, for the common interests of the people of the two countries.
Regarding economic, trade and investment cooperation, the two leaders affirmed that this is an important pillar of cooperation and is developing positively with two-way trade turnover reaching 3.5 billion USD by 2024.
The two sides need to effectively utilize the Vietnam - EU Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), promote trade and investment connectivity, support the business communities of the two countries; strive to increase trade turnover between the two countries to 5 billion USD by 2026 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
The Irish President emphasized that Vietnam is Ireland’s leading trade partner and there is still a lot of room for cooperation between the two countries; acknowledged Vietnam’s request to speed up the ratification process of the Vietnam-EU Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA) to expand cooperation and investment opportunities between the Vietnamese and Irish business communities; and hoped that Vietnam would create favorable conditions for the export of high-quality agricultural products and food from Ireland.
Both sides welcomed the establishment of the Strategic Partnership in Higher Education between the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam and the Ministry of Education, Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science of Ireland, as well as the signing of Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) between Vietnam National University, Hanoi and leading Irish universities.
The two leaders agreed that this is a priority area of cooperation between the two countries, thereby contributing to improving the quality of training, developing high-quality human resources, promoting scientific research and innovation in Vietnam.
