Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh talks on the phone with Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. Photo: Duong Giang/VNA

Prime Minister Chinh on Wednesday had a phone call with Lawrence Wong, who has been serving as the fourth prime minister of Singapore since May 15, 2024.

During the phone call, both PMs praised the network of Vietnam-Singapore industrial parks (VSIP), a symbol of successful economic cooperation, saying Singapore is the first country with which Vietnam established the Green Economy-Digital Economy Partnership in February last year.

Prime Minister Chinh affirmed that Vietnam always considers Singapore an important partner in the region and the world, pledging to further coordinate closely with the Singapore Government to make their strategic partnership stronger, deeper, substantive, effective, and worthy of being a model of dynamic relations in ASEAN.

Vietnam is keen on replicating the VSIP model and will create favorable conditions for more new generation VSIPs to operate effectively in Vietnam, he said.

The Prime Minister proposed that the two sides strengthen defense and security cooperation, including setting up the National Data Center, boost financial cooperation, education, training, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges to improve common understanding between the two peoples.

The Singapore Prime Minister affirmed that he will continue to promote delegation exchanges, high-level contacts at all levels and bilateral cooperation mechanisms, especially the annual meeting between the two Prime Ministers.

Singapore wishes to work with Vietnam to effectively implement the Framework Agreement on Connecting the Two Economies and Vietnam-Singapore Green Economy-Digital Economy Partnership in clean energy and carbon credits, he added.

Mr. Wong called the VSIP network a beacon in bilateral economic cooperation and agreed to make new generation VSIPs greener and more suitable to development trends and Vietnam's priorities.

He also said he would ask his ministers to continue encouraging Singaporean businesses to expand new investments in Vietnam, coupled with improving the quality of foreign direct investment (FDI) capital flows, prioritizing high-tech, and boosting digital economy, circular economy, clean energy, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence (AI).