Vietnamese Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong begins a State visit to Cambodia

This is Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong’s second visit to Cambodia. The first one was in December, 2011. Taking place on the 50th anniversary of Vietnam-Cambodia diplomatic ties, the visit shows that Vietnam attaches great importance to neighborliness and friendship with Cambodia.

Vietnam treasures neighborliness, friendship with Cambodia

As part of celebrations of the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Year 2017, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc paid an official visit to Cambodia in April to show Vietnam’s consistent policy of respecting its long-term traditional friendship with Cambodia and its wish to boost bilateral ties.

During the past few months, a number of Cambodian leaders including Cambodian Prime Minister and President of the Cambodian People’s Party Samdech Techo Hunsen and National Assembly Speaker Samdech Heng Samrin visited Vietnam.

During the visits, leaders of the two countries asserted the need to further bilateral ties under the motto “good neighborliness, traditional friendship, and comprehensive, sustainable, and long-term cooperation.” Vietnamese National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said: “Despite ups and downs throughout the history, solidarity, traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Cambodia have developed steadily. These are invaluable, sacred, and sustainable treasures of the two countries. We believe that our bilateral ties will flourish regardless of regional and global developments.”

Effective cooperation

Sharing a land border of 1,137 km as well as the Mekong River and the Gulf of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia have supported each other during their past national liberation struggles and in their current national development.

Vietnam is one of Cambodia’s leading trading partners. Vietnam has 200 investment projects in Cambodia with total registered capital of approximately 3 billion USD. Two-way trade has averaged 3 billion USD annually in recent years and is expected to grow to 5 billion USD next years, and 6 billion USD by 2020.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Cambodia Thach Du elaborates on ways to achieve this growth: “Vietnamese and Cambodian enterprises need to strengthen marketing their products and services. We need to organize trade fairs, exhibitions, and other trade promotion activities, and implement agreements and initiatives to facilitate enterprises of the two countries. The two countries will continue implementing preferential policies of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle and sign a new agreement to replace the one on border goods and service exchange signed in 2001.”

The two sides have effectively implemented cooperative agreements on national defense and security to ensure land and maritime border security and safety.

The two countries have been actively coordinating to implement land border demarcation and border marker planting. They have completed over 84 percent of the work and are striving to complete it as soon as possible in order to create a border of peace, friendship, cooperation and sustainable development.

Vietnam and Cambodia have enhanced bilateral cooperation in education, training, and health care and supported each other at regional and global forums.