Top leader meets Sri Lankan Prime Minister in Colombo

To affirmed that Viet Nam always attaches importance to its traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation with Sri Lanka.

The upgrade of the bilateral relations into a Comprehensive Partnership establishes a high level of political trust between the two countries, while expanding the scope and depth of cooperation towards a more comprehensive and substantive manner, noted the Vietnamese leader

He called on the Prime Minister to direct the relevant agencies to work closely with their Vietnamese counterparts in effectively implementing the outcomes achieved during his Sri Lanka visit, particularly strengthening political trust via maintaining delegation exchanges, high-level and all-level contacts, as well as bilateral cooperation mechanisms.

There remains ample room for trade and investment cooperation between the two countries, said To, suggesting that the Government of Sri Lanka create favorable conditions and provide incentive policies for major Vietnamese enterprises to invest in areas such as infrastructure, services, tourism, electric vehicles, technology, and telecommunications.

He called for the active implementation of concrete measures to facilitate mutual market access for goods from both countries, with the aim of achieving a bilateral trade turnover of US$1 billion.

The Sri Lankan leader, for her part, emphasized that the upgrading of bilateral relations to a Comprehensive Partnership is of great significance, opening up new prospect for cooperation.

Amarasuriya shared her strong impression of the inspiring speech delivered by General Secretary and President To Lam at the Parliament of Sri Lanka on May 8, noting that Viet Nam's achievements and the Vietnamese leader's proposals for cooperation are highly aligned with Sri Lanka's aspirations.

Based on the newly established Comprehensive Partnership, the Government of Sri Lanka will continue to coordinate closely with the Government of Viet Nam to promote cooperation across various fields.

She expressed hope that the Vietnamese side would create favorable conditions for Sri Lankan businesses to expand their presence in Viet Nam, while supporting, sharing experience, and providing training opportunities for Sri Lankan officials, civil servants, and students in the country.

The two sides vowed to consider signing government-level agreements to foster stronger ties in new areas such as critical minerals, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, seaports, and air connectivity.

They asserted that both sides would work together to turn their positive intentions and aspirations for bilateral relations into reality, so that in the future, the two countries could look back with pride on the achievements made by today's determination./.