Top leader holds summit meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister

Luxon emphasized that the top Vietnamese leader's visit marked an important milestone in strengthening the bilateral relations, affirming that Viet Nam is a very important partner of New Zealand.

The host expressed his impression at the outstanding achievements Viet Nam has made in recent years under the leadership of General Secretary and President To Lam, becoming one of the fastest-growing economies in the region and the world.

New Zealand would continue to strongly promote trade and investment ties with Viet Nam, thereby creating favorable conditions and opportunities for businesses from the two countries to cooperate and invest in each other's markets, reiterated the Prime Minister.

He hailed Viet Nam's efforts to formulate policies and implement solutions to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to protecting data sovereignty and national digital sovereignty.

New Zealand would continue sharing experience with Viet Nam in building a digital government, developing an ecosystem to support science and technology development, and establishing innovation and startup support centers, said Luxon.

Amidst complex developments in the world and the region, Prime Minister Luxon expressed thanks to Viet Nam, in its capacity as coordinator of ASEAN-New Zealand relations, for supporting his country in upgrading its relations with ASEAN, an important multilateral mechanism in Southeast Asia, to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

New Zealand will support Viet Nam during its APEC 2027 year, Luxon promised.

To Lam, for his part, reiterated that Viet Nam always attaches importance to its traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation with New Zealand.

He expressed satisfaction that Viet Nam-New Zealand relations have made important strides in recent years, particularly the upgrade of their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties in 2025.

The upgrade of the bilateral ties has opened up opportunities to deepen cooperation across various fields, making bilateral relations more substantive, closer and more beneficial to their peoples, he underlined.

The guest urged both sides to review and effectively implement the action program for the implementation of the Viet Nam-New Zealand Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for the 2025-2030 period.

To Lam spoke highly of the practical and effective support provided by the New Zealand Government to Viet Nam over the years, particularly in agriculture and environment.

He expressed his desire to continue working together to develop green, low-emission and climate-resilient agriculture, ensure food security and increase the added value of agricultural products, while developing exemplary models of sustainable agricultural cooperation.

The two leaders vowed to continue strengthening political trust and developing bilateral relations by increasing exchanges and contacts at all levels, through the Party, State and National Assembly channels as well as people-to-people exchanges, thereby making effective use of policy dialogue mechanisms.

The two sides agreed to enhance defense and security cooperation towards a more substantive and effective manner, particularly in maritime security, naval ship exchanges, cybersecurity and military medicine.

They underlined the need to study the establishment of a direct communication mechanism or a hotline to address transnational crime cases, and accelerate negotiations towards establishing mechanisms and signing bilateral cooperation agreements.

Affirming that the two economies are highly complementary, they emphasized that trade and investment cooperation is a very important pillar of bilateral ties with considerable potential, particularly in agricultural, aquatic and seafood trade.

They asserted to expand the scale of economic and trade cooperation and make effective use of the free trade agreements to which both countries are parties, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA).

The pair stressed the need for both sides to promote trade facilitation, open markets for each country's key agricultural products, reduce technical barriers, enhance exchanges on quality standards, quarantine, food safety and electronic certification, and facilitate businesses from both countries in investing in each other's markets.

Education, tourism, connectivity and people-to-people exchanges will become important drivers of the bilateral relations, they noted, affirming to expand collaboration in high-quality human resource training, developing personnel with the qualifications, expertise and skills required for the new stage of development.

They called on airlines of the two countries to soon launch direct air routes, thereby creating more opportunities for people-to-people exchanges and new, more substantive and comprehensive cooperation.

The two leaders vowed to strengthen cooperation on regional and international issues of shared concern at multilateral forums, particularly the United Nations.

The two sides also reaffirmed the importance of upholding international law in the region and resolving disputes in the East Sea through peaceful means in accordance with international law, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982). /.