Vietnamese, Ugandan Presidents hold talks

Welcoming the Ugandan President, Phuc affirmed that the first visit to Vietnam by a head of state of Uganda since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties in 1973 is an important milestone, contributing to enhancing the friendship and cooperation of the two country.

He congratulated and showed his belief that Uganda will successfully host the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 2023 as well as fulfilling its role as the NAM Chair for the 2023-2026 term.

For his part, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni congratulated Vietnam on successfully assuming the role of a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in the 2020-2021 tenure, and its election to the UN Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term. He said he believes that Vietnam will maintain its effective contributions to the UN’s efforts to ensure peace, security and development.

The two leaders welcomed positive development of bilateral relations, with political-diplomatic ties maintained, and economic cooperation achieving encouraging results. Two-way trade reached 14.3 million USD last year, up 39.8% year-on-year.

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc (standing, right) and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Kaguta Museveni witness the signing of memorandum of understanding on cooperation between the two foreign ministries (Photo: VNA)

Affirming that there remains ample room for bilateral cooperation, they agreed on specific orientations to further boost the ties.

They highlighted the importance of stepping up delegation exchanges and contacts in all channels, and maintaining coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums, particularly the UN and the NAM.

Both asserted their determination to foster economic cooperation and increase two-way trade to be commensurate with the fine political relationship and the market scale of nearly 150 million people of the two nations.

President Phuc suggested Uganda create favourable conditions for the export and import of commodities that are strengths of each side, including cotton and wood of Uganda; and food, garment and textiles, construction materials, means of transport and components, and telecoms equipment of Vietnam.

The two leaders also emphasised the importance of agricultural cooperation, considering it one of the pillars of bilateral relations, with priority given to ensuring food security; and agreed to expand collaboration to education-training, information and communications, defence-security, health and tourism.

They also exchanged opinions on several regional and international issues of mutual concern, and shared the view of addressing these issues by peaceful means on the basis of upholding international law.

After their talks, the Presidents witnessed the signing of an agreement on visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders; and four memoranda of understanding on cooperation in diplomacy, education, information and communications, and agriculture technology.