On the morning of April 10, at the request of New Zealand, Politburo member and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had a phone call with New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to discuss bilateral relations and regional and international issues of mutual concern.
At the phone call, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh highly appreciated the results achieved during Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's official visit to Vietnam in February 2025; especially the issuance of a Joint Statement to upgrade relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
The Prime Minister suggested that the two sides continue to actively coordinate in developing an action program to implement the new framework of relations, contributing to the realization of the commitments and agreements reached, as well as the contents of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
The Prime Minister informed about Vietnam's efforts in exchanges with the US side regarding countervailing taxes, including a phone call between General Secretary To Lam and US President Donald Trump on April 4, 2025, measures that Vietnam has implemented to facilitate the promotion of two-way trade between Vietnam and the US, as well as measures to support businesses to adapt to the situation, such as preferential interest rates, support credit packages, tax and fee reductions, and administrative cost cuts...
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that in the face of fluctuations in the international economic and trade situation, Vietnam is calm, not panicked, nor subjective, and not negligent, ready to proactively adapt to any situation.
Vietnam's motto is to persevere, proactively dialogue and cooperate with the US and its partners to resolve difficulties and problems in the spirit of harmonious benefits, shared risks, avoiding confrontation, and complicating the situation.
The Prime Minister also emphasized that this is an opportunity for Vietnam to promote economic restructuring, green and digital transformation, find new growth momentum, as well as continue to diversify potential markets for commodity exports.
The Prime Minister highly appreciated the positive developments, including President Donald Trump's announcement of a temporary postponement of countervailing taxes on many trading partners within 90 days; emphasizing that Vietnam will continue to actively exchange with relevant US agencies to move towards a framework for trade cooperation to ensure the harmonious interests of both sides, ensuring the legitimate interests of the people and businesses of the two countries.
The Prime Minister emphasized that in the current context, countries need to promote dialogue and mutual understanding, and strengthen cooperation in multilateral economic linkage frameworks.
In that spirit, the Prime Minister suggested Vietnam and New Zealand strengthen information exchange, cooperation and close coordination in the trade framework that the two countries are now members, including ASEAN - Australia - New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA), Agreement on Comprehensive and Progressive Trans -Pacific Partnership (CPTPP); as well as further strengthening bilateral trade and investment cooperation in the spirit of comprehensive strategic partnership; Continuing to diversify the import and export items of the two sides, towards the goal of 3 billion USD trade turnover by 2026.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon highly appreciated the shared opinions of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh; emphasized that Vietnam and New Zealand share the common interest in ensuring an uninterrupted international trade system and supply chain, ensuring stable growth and prosperity of each country as well as globally. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon agreed to strengthen cooperation between the two countries both bilaterally and in multilateral cooperation frameworks in the coming time.
The two leaders also agreed to continue promoting ASEAN's central role in regional issues, supporting the maintenance of positive progress in ASEAN-US relations, contributing to maintaining an open, inclusive, fair and rule-based multilateral trading system.
