A meeting takes place in Hanoi on August 2, 2023 to review 10 years of implementing Politburo Resolution 22 on international integration. (Photo: VOV)

Vietnam has established diplomatic relations with nearly 200 countries and territories.

Since 2013 it has formed a network of strategic partnerships and comprehensive partnerships with 33 countries, including major world powers. Vietnam has participated in UN peacekeeping activities and signed 16 Free Trade Agreements involving 60 economies.

Vietnam’s national brand recorded the highest growth rate in the world –74% ­– in the 2019-2022 period, and the brand is now worth 431 billion USD.

International integration should be viewed as a strategic issue

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh told Wednesday’s national conference reviewing 10 years of implementing the Politburo resolution on international integration that international integration is a difficult and sensitive affair but it must be done.

Vietnam has huge potential and opportunities for external cooperation. International integration must be viewed as a strategic issue, a cause of the people and the political system.

In order to effectively integrate globally, Vietnam should harmonize independence, self-reliance, and extensive and comprehensive international integration and consider international integration an important driving force for innovation and development. 

International integration should be closely associated with improving national self-reliance, competitiveness, resilience, and adaptability to external fluctuations.

It’s necessary to fully tap external resources in building and fine-tuning institutions, improving governance capacity, mobilizing finance, training human resources, and researching and transferring technology. 

Prime Minister Chinh said it’s necessary to have a mindset of daring to think, daring to do, daring to break through, and daring to act decisively. Integration in different fields should complement each other, with economic integration as the focus. Integration in other sectors must contribute to economic development.

Creating new qualitative development in international integration

Prime Minister Chinh said Vietnam needs to creatively apply three pillars in national construction and defense: building socialist democracy, building a socialist state governed by law, and developing a socialist-oriented market economy. Vietnam will continue implementing and realizing external policy set by the 13^th National Party Congress, Mr. Chinh said.

“It’s necessary to continue implementing the Party’s important guidelines in the integration process, creatively apply them to suit the situation at home and abroad, uphold the external policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification, and multilateralization, and of being a good friend, a reliable partner, and a responsible member of the international community for the sake of peace and cooperation in the new context.”

”We’ll continue to build an independent and self-reliant economy but actively and effectively integrate into the global economy, implement a defense policy of "4-no’s" - not join military alliances, not associate with one country to fight against another, not allow foreign countries to set up military bases or use territory to fight against other countries, and not use force or threaten to use force in international relations,” said Mr. Chinh.

Mr. Chinh stressed that Vietnam has effectively, strictly, and thoroughly implemented bilateral and multilateral agreements and commitments with an attitude of doing what was said, doing what was promised, and achieving results.

Vietnam's achievements in international integration over the past 10 years have contributed to raising its position and prestige in the international arena. 

To place itself in an optimal position in the new international situation and optimize resources for national development, Vietnam should create new development steps and take advantage of the 4th Industrial Revolution, Free Trade Agreements that Vietnam has joined, and partnerships.