On the afternoon of January 26, at the Government Headquarters, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met with General Secretary and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and General Secretary and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith expressed their pleasure that the relationship between the two countries has been constantly strengthened, increasingly deepening and becoming more effective; the two leaders agreed to assess that despite being heavily affected by the world and regional situation, the relationship between the two countries still maintains a positive development momentum, going deeper, achieving many substantive results; emphasizing that the serious implementation of high-level agreements by ministries, branches and localities of the two countries has made an important contribution to promoting socio-economic development and bringing practical benefits to the people of the two countries.
Exchanging views on bilateral cooperation, the two leaders said that in the coming time, the two sides need to continue to promote stronger, more effectively and substantively, to make economic cooperation a strong pillar, commensurate with the special level of political trust between the two countries.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized the importance of strengthening the connection between the two economies, especially connecting strategic infrastructure for transportation, energy and logistics; requested the two sides to effectively coordinate to resolve and remove difficulties, create favorable conditions to support and promote the implementation of large-scale investment projects, maintain the organization of dialogue between Vietnamese businesses and Lao functional agencies, create favorable conditions to attract large and potential Vietnamese businesses to invest in fields where Laos has strengths, especially investing in the Lao - Vietnam border area; investing in building processing and production plants to increase added value, meeting domestic needs in Laos.
The General Secretary and President of Laos unanimously agreed to strongly promote the connection of the two economies, including strategic projects such as the Hanoi - Vientiane expressway project, the gasoline and oil storage project, and the North Laos - Vietnam power transmission line project; highly appreciated the two sides' expansion of the payment method in the local currency of each country.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that the Vietnamese Government will continue to encourage and create favorable conditions for Vietnamese businesses to invest effectively and sustainably in Laos; and at the same time proposed that the two sides strengthen coordination to remove difficulties and obstacles, create a favorable environment for bilateral trade, especially border trade, towards the goal of increasing bilateral trade turnover to 5-10 billion USD in the coming time; and emphasized the significance of strengthening traffic infrastructure connectivity between Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to promote economic, trade and investment connectivity between the three economies.
The two sides agreed to continue to strengthen close cooperation in the field of national defense and security, maintain political stability, order, social safety, ensure security and safety in border areas; promote coordination in preventing and combating transnational crime, especially drug crime, human trafficking and high-tech crime.
