President Vo Van Thuong arrives in Rome for visits to Italy, the Vatican
President’s Italy visit takes place in the context that the two countries are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic ties and the 10th anniversary of their Strategic Partnership.
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| State President Vo Van Thuong and his spouse arrived in Rome on July 25 evening (Vietnam time) for a State visit to Italy and a visit to the Vatican, made at invitations of President of Italy Sergio Mattarella and Pope Francis. |
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| The President's visit to taly takes place in the context that the two countries are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic ties and the 10th anniversary of their Strategic Partnership. |
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| During his trip, President Thuong is scheduled to hold talks with his counterpart and meet Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa, and President of the Chamber of Deputies Lorenzo Fontana, among others. |
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| He will attend a concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties and meet representatives of the Vietnamese community in the European country. |
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| During his visit to the Vatican, the leader will meet Pope Francis and the Secretary of State of the Vatican, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. |
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| Before visiting Italy, President Vo Van Thuong, his Spouse and Vietnamese high-level delegation have had a very fruitful visit to Austria. |
Vietnam and Italy set up their diplomatic relations on March 23, 1973 and lifted their ties to a strategic partnership in January, 2013.
Since then, the two sides have actively promoted their substantial and effective cooperation in all fields, from politics, diplomacy to economy, science, education, defence-security, environmental protection, and locality-to-locality collaboration.
High-level delegation exchanges and meetings between the two countries have been maintained. Most recently, in December 2022, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met with his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni on the sidelines of the ASEAN-EU Summit in Brussels.
During the COVID-19 pandemic period, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh had an online conversation in May 2020, while PM Chinh and his counterpart Mario Draghi also met online in April 2022.
In high-level talks, Italy always affirmed its determination to promote all-round ties with Vietnam, considering Vietnam as a priority for developing ties in the Southeast Asian region.
In recent years, trade and investment cooperation has been a bright spot in the bilateral relations thanks to joint efforts of both sides.
Since 2010, two-way trade has doubled. Vietnam has been the largest trade partner of Italy among the ASEAN countries, while Italy is the third biggest partner of Vietnam among the EU members. Two-way trade rose 21% in 2021 to 5.6 billion USD in 2021, and 11% in 2022 to 6.2 billion USD. The figure hit 3.1 billion USD in the first half of this year.
Vietnam remains one of the 10 emerging countries prioritised for trade and investment cooperation development by Italy until 2030. The two countries have created favourable conditions for businesses of each other to cooperate in areas of Italy’s strength and Vietnam’s demand such as mechanical engineering, infrastructure, garment and textiles, footwear, wood processing, supporting industries, building materials, oil and gas, renewable energy, and food processing.
(WVR/VNA)
