Viet Nam is top investment destination in ASEAN: Bernd Lange

Lange made the above statement during his meeting with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in Ha Noi on Friday.

Lange spoke highly of cooperation prospect with Viet Nam in such areas like climate change, environmental protection, green growth, and energy transition.

He said the European Union (EU) is now carrying out a number of strategies and initiatives on green transitin, including Fit for 55 which refers to the EU's target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, expressing his hope that Viet Nam and the EU will jointly implement projects in this domain.

Prime Minister Pham affirmed Viet Nam has been keen on its foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification and multilateralization of external relations, in which the EU is one of Viet Nam's major partners.

Pham noted with pleasure at the positive developments of the comprehensive partnership between Viet Nam and the EU, notably both sides have established full cooperation mechanisms on politics, economy-trade-investment, forestry, defense and security.

Particularly the two-way trade and the EU's investment flows to Viet Nam have grown remarkablly since the EU-Viet Nam free trade agreement came into effect from August 1, 2020.

Pham asked the EU to continue creating favorable conditions for Vietnamese goods to enter the markets of its member countries and to ratify the EU-Viet Nam investment protection agreement in order to further advance economic ties.

He also urged the EU to soon remove "yellow card" warning against Vietnamese seafood exports and continue technical assistance for the Southeast Asian country to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

On environment and climate cooperation, Prime Minister Pham suggested the EU continue assisting Viet Nam in setting up Viet Nam-G7 partnership on just energy transition.

Pham also took the occasion to re-assure Viet Nam's support for stronger partnership between ASEAN and the EU./.