National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan

The trip will be made at the invitation of Speaker of the Thai House of Representatives Chuan Leekpai, who is also Chair of AIPA 40. The high-ranking Vietnamese delegation taking part in AIPA 40 aims to continue affirming the Vietnamese legislature’s active and responsible participation in AIPA’s activities and improving Vietnam’s external activities.

The AIPA 40 will take the theme “Advancing Parliamentary Partnership for Sustainable Community”, during which NA Chairwoman Ngan will assume the role of AIPA Chair from Speaker Leekpai, organising the AIPA 41 next year and other activities within the framework of the AIPA Chair Year.

Vietnam and Thailand established their diplomatic ties in 1976 and upgraded the relationship to strategic partnership level on the occasion of the Thailand visit by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in 2013.

Both sides effectively carried out the action programme to realise bilateral strategic partnership for the 2014 – 2018 period and are working on contents of the action programme for the 2019 – 2024 period.

Thailand is now Vietnam’s largest trade partner in ASEAN while Vietnam is Thailand’s second largest importer in ASEAN and the seventh largest globally. Two-way trade hit 17.2 billion USD last year. The two countries set to bring the two-way trade to 20 billion USD by 2020. Thailand ranks ninth out of 126 countries and territories investing in Vietnam with 521 valid projects worth 10.38 billion USD. Vietnam now invests in 17 projects worth 29.2 million USD in Thailand.

The two countries are among the most active members of sub-regional cooperation mechanisms and closely working together in the fields of labour, culture, sports, tourism and people-to-people exchange.

The number of overseas Vietnamese in Thailand counts over 100,000, who have made important contributions to socio-economic development in the host nation.

Ties between the two legislatures are growing with mutual support at international inter-parliamentary forums such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.

Friendship parliamentarians’ groups of the two nations have facilitated exchanges. During recent meetings, Thai parliamentarians expressed their interest in promoting bilateral collaboration across rice export, economic and trade activities, culture-education, and science-technology.

NA Chairwoman Ngan’s presence at AIPA 40 and visit to Thailand is to affirm the Vietnamese Party and State’s external policy of active and proactive integration into the region and the world, further strengthening Vietnam – Thailand strategic partnership.-VNA