Deputy PM receives UK Minister of State

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (R) and Mark Field (Source: baochinhphu.vn)

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh hosted a reception for Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific of the Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom (UK) of Great Britain and North Ireland Mark Field in Hanoi on January 2.

The UK official is in Vietnam to attend the Vietnam-UK deputy foreign minister-level political consultation.

Deputy PM and FM Minh applauded the outcomes of the consultation between Vietnamese Deputy FM Bui Thanh Son and Mark Field, as well as the recent positive development of the Vietnam-UK Strategic Partnership in many important fields such as politics-diplomacy, trade-investment, education-training, defence-security, climate change adaptation, and UN peacekeeping operation.

Minh suggested the UK Government hurry the European Union (EU) to early sign and approve the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), while appreciating the UK side’s proposals to boost trade and investment cooperation between the two countries after the UK officially leaves the EU.

He spoke highly of the UK’s role in security and development issues in the world, and agreed that the two sides will work closely at multilateral forums, thus contributing to ensuring peace, stability and cooperation in the region and the world.

For his part, Mark Field highly valued Vietnam’s socio-economic development and international integration achievements made recently, as well as the fruitful development of the bilateral relations in recent times.

He affirmed that the UK Government continuously gives priority to developing its relations with Vietnam – a country which has the increasingly important voice in ASEAN and in the Asia Pacific region.

VNA