Viet Nam, Indonesia consider to lift bilateral ties to new height

Pham reiterated the significance of the Indonesian leader's visit to Viet Nam, which creates a new impetus for the two countries' relationship after 10 years of establishing the strategic partnership, heading to celebrate the 70^th anniversary of diplomatic ties (1955-2025).

He suggested Indonesia advocate Viet Nam to host the ASEAN Future Forum on rapid, sustainable, and people-centric development in 2024 and send a senior leader to attend the event, with a view to building a self-reliant and sustainable ASEAN Community.

Joko Widodo, for his part, underscored that Viet Nam is a partner of strategic importance of Indonesia in the region.

Both leaders hailed the strong and dynamic development of the bilateral ties across all sectors, with economic cooperation as a spotlight.

Indonesia registered over US$1 billion in investment in Viet Nam during January–November last year, up 37 percent year on year. Indonesia remains the third largest ASEAN trading partner of Viet Nam, while Viet Nam ranks fourth among trading partners of Indonesia in the region, with bilateral trade reaching nearly US$13 billion in the 11 months.

The pair agreed to continue increasing all-level delegation exchanges and meetings, effectively implement bilateral cooperation mechanisms and signed high-level agreements and documents, and soon build an action plan for the 2024-2028 period.

They pledged to raise the two-way trade to US$15 billion in the near future and US$18 billion by 2028, facilitate their businesses to invest in each other's markets, and expand cooperation to new fronts such as artificial intelligence, digital economy, green economy, renewable energy, and electric vehicle (EV) and EV battery ecosystem.

Both leaders underlined the need to step up cooperation programs within the framework of the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), foster stronger ties in the Halal industry, as well as strengthen collaboration in ensuring food security, and explore the possibility of signing of a deal on rice trading.

Viet Nam and Indonesia should bolster cooperation in other important areas such as defense, security, maritime affairs, and work together to settle common sea-related challenges, fisheries, and the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, they noted.

The two leaders vowed to promote education-training cooperation, increase direct commercial flights, and enhance people-to-people links and local-to-local cooperation.

The host and the guest pledged to continue cooperation and mutual support at multilateral organizations and consolidate ASEAN's solidarity, centrality, and common viewpoint on regional security issues, including the East Sea issue; and support Laos to fulfill the role of the ASEAN Chair in 2024./.