Top Vietnamese, Ivory Coast legislators hold talks in Ha Noi

Tran highlighted Ivory Coast's leading position in West Africa, adding that parliaments today not only perform legislative and oversight functions but also serve as bridges between peoples, promoting peace, justice, and sustainable development.

He urged the two sides to identify parliamentary cooperation as a pillar and important foundation of their bilateral relations, underlining the need to focus on effectively implementing the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between the two National Assemblies, exploring the possibility of establishing friendship parliamentary groups in each country's National Assembly, and strengthening the sharing of legislative and oversight experience.

The host expressed his pleasure at the positive progress in the bilateral cooperation, making Ivory Coast Viet Nam's largest trading partner in Africa in 2025, with the two-way trade value reaching nearly US$2 billion.

The top Vietnamese legislator proposed that the two sides join hands in speeding up and overseeing the negotiation, signing, and implementation of key framework documents and agreements, such as the framework agreement on cooperation between the two Governments, the double taxation avoidance agreement, and the investment promotion and protection agreement.

Tran suggested the two legislative bodies accelerate the development of a transparent and stable business environment, facilitate bilateral trade, diversify import and export products, and work toward the goal of increasing bilateral trade turnover to more than US$3–5 billion in the coming period.

He expressed his hope that Ivory Coast would support Viet Nam in strengthening substantive relations with the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) while the Southeast Asian nation stands ready to serve as a bridge for Ivory Coast to strengthen ties with ASEAN and its member states.

Achi, for his part, called on the Vietnamese legislative body to share its experience in lawmaking and economic development, particularly in agriculture, fisheries, technical and vocational training, public financial management, innovation, and reforming the operations of the National Assembly.

The two sides vowed to enhance information exchanges and promptly update each other on new policies and regulations, particularly those related to trade and investment.

Regarding multilateral cooperation, the two leaders pledged to strengthen consultations and continue to support each other at international forums, particularly multilateral parliamentary forums such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie (APF)./.