Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud. (photo: Duong Giang/VNA)

The ASEAN-GCC Summit takes place amid rapid and complex developments regionally and globally. Dialogue and cooperation have become an urgent need of countries, especially small and medium-sized countries. ASEAN advocates deeper relations with big countries and expanded relations with all countries and organizations around the world, in order to take advantage of resources to build the ASEAN Community, promote recovery and sustainable development, and build a favorable environment for dialogue and cooperation.

Prime Minister Chinh’s visit will strengthen cooperative ties between two of the leading organizations in Southeast Asia and the Gulf region, fostering collaboration, enhancing political trust, and improving the effectiveness of cooperation between Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.

Vietnam promotes ASEAN-GCC cooperation

With a population of nearly 700 million people in ASEAN countries and 60 million people in the Gulf region, grouping many emerging economies, ASEAN and GCC are dynamic and promising organizations and also global growth centers.

Sharing similarities with ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council is the leading organization in the Middle East. It consists of six Gulf countries– Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman.

The GCC, established in May, 1981, is headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The GCC countries follow a moderate foreign policy, promote the Look East policy, and foster stronger cooperation with Southeast Asia.

The first official contact between the GCC and ASEAN took place in 1990 when Oman, the GCC Chair in that year, expressed a desire to establish official relations with ASEAN. The first ASEAN-GCC Ministerial Meeting was held in 2009 in Bahrain. Since then, the foreign ministers of the two blocs have met annually on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The first ASEAN-GCC Summit in Saudi Arabia is a very important event. Its aim is to improve economic and trade relations between the two blocs, particularly in energy, low carbon technology, and financial and banking cooperation.

As a key member of ASEAN, Vietnam is always active, positive, and responsible, and effectively contributes to ASEAN-GCC relations, thereby contributing to Vietnam’s relations with GCC and each GCC country.

In 2018, Vietnam took on the role of coordinator between ASEAN and the GCC, and together with Kuwait, the GCC President in 2018, successfully co-chaired the ASEAN-GCC Foreign Ministers' Meeting in New York in September, 2018, on the sidelines of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly.

Enhancing Vietnam-GCC bilateral relations

All six GCC countries are priority cooperation partners of Vietnam, spanning many fields from politics to diplomacy, trade, investment, and labor. Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE have established embassies in each other’s country. Trade turnover between Vietnam and GCC countries reached 12.5 billion USD last year. Total direct investment of GCC countries in Vietnam reached 1 billion USD. Vietnam has about 11,000 workers in GCC countries. Vietnam is negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the UAE.

Relations between Vietnam and Saudi Arabia have been developing very well. The two countries regularly exchange delegations and support each other at global forums.

Bilateral trade last year reached 2.7 billion USD, up 32%. Many large companies in Saudi Arabia, including the Zamil Steel Group and the Sabic have invested in Vietnam. The Saudi Arabia Development Fund has provided preferential loans for 13 projects with a total value of 181 million USD. Vietnam has between 4,000 and 5,000 workers in Saudi Arabia.

Prime Minister Chinh's attendance at the ASEAN-GCC Summit and his visit to Saudi Arabia are Vietnam's major diplomatic events this year. The trip upholds Vietnam's foreign policy of promoting multilateral diplomacy, independence, self-reliance, peace, cooperation, development, and diversification, and conveys Vietnam’s strong commitment and responsible contribution as a peaceful, sincere, and trustworthy country that is ready to strengthen friendly relations, dialogue, and mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries to build peace and stability in the region and the world. The trip also creates new momentum for Vietnam-Saudi Arabia relations and opens up many future cooperation opportunities.