President Vo Van Thuong welcomes Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Hanoi, August 21, 2023.

After inspecting the guard of honor, the two Presidents held talks during which President Thuong said Vietnam always treasures the traditional friendship with Kazakhstan, and considers the country its leading partner in Central Asia. He asked Kazakhstan to support negotiations on upgrading the Vietnam-Eurasia Economic Union Free Trade Agreement to facilitate trade between the two sides.

President Tokayev said Kazakhstan attaches great importance to bilateral ties and sees Vietnam as one of its top partners in the Asia-Pacific region. He called for closer coordination to bring two-way trade from 600 million USD last year to 1.5 billion USD by 2030 and proposed the establishment of the Vietnam-Kazakhstan Business Council.

The leaders agreed that Vietnam is ready to serve as a bridge linking Kazakhstan and ASEAN and Kazakhstan will, in turn help Vietnam strengthen cooperation with other Central Asian countries.

They agreed to support each other at multilateral forums and expand cooperation to include transport, education, culture, tourism, finance and high technology. They shared the view on settling regional and global disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law.

The leaders witnessed the signing of a number of documents including an agreement on visa exemption for ordinary passport holders, a joint action plan on economic and trade cooperation until 2025 and an MoU on tourism cooperation.