The Vietnamese Embassy in Australia held a ceremony to mark the 40 th
anniversary of the Vietnam – Australia diplomatic ties in Canberra on
February 25.
Addressing the event, Vietnamese
Ambassador to Australia Hoang Vinh Thanh affirmed that since the
establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties in 1973, the relations
between Vietnam and Australia have seen positive development in various
fields, including politics, economics, security, defence and education.
The relationship has flourished in both width and depth
after the two countries established the comprehensive partnership in
2009. High-level exchanges and dialogues including visits by Vietnamese
Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Australian Foreign Minister Bob
Carr and Defence Minister Stephen Smith last year further deepened
bilateral political and security cooperation, Thanh said.
In terms of economic relations, Australia is now the eighth largest
trade partner and the 18 th biggest foreign investor in Vietnam. Two-way trade hit 5 billion USD in 2012, a fifteenfold increase from 20 years ago.
Meanwhile, the people-to-people relations have laid an important social
foundation to consolidate friendship and mutual understanding in all
fields, such as culture, education, sports, information dissemination
and trading.
Thanh said he hopes thanks to joint
efforts by the two Governments and peoples, the Vietnam – Australia
cooperation and friendship will continue to see strong growth.
On the occasion, Australian permanent Deputy Secretary of Foreign
Affairs and Trade Peter Varghese conveyed Australian leaders’ greetings
to the Vietnamese Government and people.
Varghese
stressed the importance of ties with Vietnam to Australia , a fact
included in the “ Australia in the Asian century” white paper. He
affirmed that the bilateral ties are growing comprehensively in
politics, trade, investment, development assistance, border security,
defence, trans-national crime combat and education.
The diplomat said he believes Vietnam will keep thriving economically
and play an increasingly important role in the region and international
arena.-VNA