Lao General Secretary and President Thongloun Sisoulith holds talks with General Secretary To Lam. Photo: VOV

The agreement was made during talks between Party General Secretary To Lam and Party General Secretary and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith, on Monday Vientiane. The talks were held after the official welcoming ceremony for General Secretary To Lam, his wife, and the high-ranking delegation of the Party and State of Vietnam, who are on a State visit to Laos.

At the talks, the two sides agreed to continue promoting defense and security cooperation, closely coordinating and supporting each other in responding to diverse and complex security challenges; as well as linking security and defense with socio-economic development. They also agreed to strengthen connectivity in the economy, infrastructure, banking-finance, and tourism, take effective measures to raise bilateral trade to 5 billion USD in the near future and towards 10 billion USD.

Both stressed the need to boost connectivity of transport infrastructure, energy, logistics as well as exchange of experience in macroeconomic management, institutional reform, and anti-corruption. Vietnam and Laos agreed to speed up the implementation of agreements to support each other in building an independent and self-reliant economy.

The two sides pledged to maintain effective communication on international situations, support each other in multilateral forums, and the ASEAN region, protected each other's legitimate interests in accordance with international law, including the East Sea issue, which affects peace, stability and cooperation in the region and the world.

At the end of the talks, the two leaders witnessed the handover of 12 cooperation documents between ministries, sectors, localities and agencies of the two countries in the pillars of defense, security, health, justice, education-training, and finance-banking.