(VOVWORLD) -Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his UK counterpart Boris Johnson on Tuesday agreed to soon recognize each other's electronic health passports (vaccine passports) to facilitate the resumption of trade and tourism between the two countries.
 Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh talks on the phone to his UK counterpart Boris Johnson (Photo: VNA) |
During their phone conversation on Tuesday, the two Prime Ministers agreed to continue working closely to accelerate the realization of cooperation orientations in politics-diplomacy, economy-trade-investment, development cooperation, education-training, science-technology, defense-security, and people-to-people exchanges.
Prime Minister Chinh asked the UK to create more conditions for Vietnamese exports to access the UK market and encourage British businesses to expand investment in Vietnam’s potential areas such as finance-banking, oil and gas, renewable energy, digital economy, and processing and manufacturing industries.
He asked the UK to continue supporting Vietnam in accessing vaccines and drugs to treat COVID-19, developing the pharmaceutical industry, especially transferring technology to produce COVID-19 vaccines.
The Vietnamese Prime Minister applauded the UK's leading role in making commitments and initiatives at the upcoming COP26 and affirmed Vietnam’s continued commitment to contributing to the global effort to respond to climate change and to work closely with the UK to ensure the success of the conference.
Prime Minister Johnson announced that the UK will provide additional aid to Vietnam through UNICEF with some 500,000-pound worth of medical equipment. He said the UK considers Vietnam an important partner in the region in the context that the UK is adjusting its policies towards enhancing cooperation with the Indo-Pacific region.
He emphasized that despite the negative impacts of the COVID-19, the UK-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement has enabled two-way trade to grow with a turnover of seven months in 2021 reaching 3.88 billion USD, up 26.9%.
During the phone call, both leaders also discussed global and regional issues of mutual concern, underlining freedom of navigation and aviation, security and peace in the East Sea and honoring international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.