Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte (Source: Getty Images)Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister of Italy GiuseppeConte on June 5 begins an official visit to Vietnam at the invitation of hisVietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
The two-day visit aims toenhance the strategic partnership between Vietnam and Italy across spheres,ranging from politics, diplomacy, national defence and security to economy,trade, investment, development cooperation, climate change combat, culture,education, science-technology and tourism.
It is also expected topromote the two countries’ coordination and mutual support at multilateralforums.
During the visit, the twosides will exchange views on regional and international issues of sharedconcern.
Vietnam and Italy set up diplomatic ties on March23, 1973 and promoted their relationship to a strategic partnership in 2013.
The twocountries have maintained bilateral cooperation mechanisms such as the deputyforeign ministerial political consultation, the deputy ministerial defencepolicy dialogue and the joint commission on economic cooperation. They alsosupport each other at multilateral forums and organisations like the UnitedNations (UN), the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union(IPU).
Two-waytrade tripled within the past decade from 1.5 billion USD in 2009 to more than4.6 billion USD in 2018. Vietnam is the biggest trade partner of Italy in theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) while Italy is the third largesttrade partner of Vietnam in the European Union (EU).-VNA
VNA
