Deputy Foreign Minister of Vietnam Vu Hong Nam and Assistant Foreign Minister Ali Suleiman Al-Saeed of Kuwait co-chaired the third Vietnam – Kuwait political consultation in Hanoi on March 19. 

The two sides expressed the satisfaction about the development of bilateral friendship over the past years, including the maintenance of exchanges, visits, and mutual support at regional and global forums such as the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations, and strengthened ties across economy, trade, investment, labour, and education-training.

They agreed to continue delegation exchanges at all levels and improve the efficiency of the existing cooperation mechanisms like the Vietnam-Kuwait joint committee and political consultation between the two foreign ministries, creating a new impetus for the wide-ranging cooperation between the two countries.

They stressed that focus should be channeled into economic cooperation to bolster trade exchange, investment, ODA and labour collaboration via information exchange on trade policies and opportunities. Besides, businesses from the two countries should receive favourable conditions to further connections, join trade promotion activities and ink labour cooperation deals.

Vietnam called on Kuwaiti investors to invest in other fields such as infrastructure construction, agriculture, mining, power generation, and the construction of food and seafood processing plants to Halal standards for export to Muslim markets, besides Kuwait’s investment of 9 billion USD in the Nghi Son Oil Refinery in the north-central province of Thanh Hoa.

At the consultation, the two sides exchanged views on the global and regional situations of shared concern, like security and development in Southeast Asia, the prospects for settlement of some “hotspots” in the Middle East, and the ASEAN-Gulf Cooperation Council cooperation.

Regarding the settlement of disputes, especially territorial disputes, between nations in the world, the two sides agreed that the work shall be based on international law.

The consultation took place in an open and trusty manner and concluded successfully, contributing to enhancing the friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and Kuwait.-VNA