Viet Nam, Sri Lanka upgrade ties to comprehensive partnership

The agreement was reached by General Secretary and President To Lam and Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake during their summit meeting on Friday.

The two countries pledged to consolidate and enhance friendship and cooperation, promote political trust, and expand bilateral cooperation across all fields in a comprehensive and substantive manner, said the top Vietnamese leader.

To Lam, who is on a two-day visit to Sri Lanka, said the two countries agreed to further deepen political, defense and security cooperation on the basis of mutual trust, understanding and respect; enhance high-level exchanges and contacts in all channels as well as people-to-people exchanges.

Both sides also agreed to bolster cooperation in economics, trade, investment, agriculture, energy, science and technology in a substantive and mutually-beneficial fashion; deploy breakthrough solutions to soon raise the two-way trade to US$1 billion in the near future.

General Secretary and President To Lam welcomed Vietnamese airlines to launch a direct air route to Sri Lanka to create a breakthrough in connectivity between the two countries.