Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob (Photo: Bernama/VNA)The trip, to be made at the invitationof PM Pham Minh Chinh, will be the first tour of Vietnam by the Malaysianleader since he took office in August 2021.
The two countries establisheddiplomatic ties on March 30, 1973, and elevated their relations to a strategicpartnership in August 2015.
Over the past years, they havefrequently organised mutual visits and high-level meetings, including thevisits to Vietnam by Sultan Muhammad V in March 2009 and September 2013, PM NajibTun Razak in April 2014, and PM Mahathir Mohamad in August 2019; along with thetrips to Malaysia by President Truong Tan Sang in September 2011 and PM NguyenTan Dung in August 2015.
High-level meetings have been held inflexible forms such as talks over the phone and via videoconference since 2020despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some bilateral cooperation mechanismshave been carried out effectively, including the joint committee for economic,scientific, and technical cooperation, the defence cooperation committee, thejoin trade committee, and the scientific and technological cooperationcommittee.
Defence ties have been maintainedthrough all-level delegation exchanges, personnel training, and experiencesharing. Meanwhile, security cooperation has continually been enhanced as seenin increased sharing of information about terrorism, cybercrime, and transnationalcrime, along with an agreement on cooperation in transnational crime preventionand control signed in 2015.
In 2021, Malaysia ranked second inASEAN and ninth in the world among the trade partners of Vietnam, which in turn wasthe third largest trade partner of the former. Bilateral trade reached 12.5billion USD last year, up 25.3 percent from 2020. Vietnam exports mainlytelephones and components, crude oil, rice coffee, and seafood to Malaysiawhile importing mostly computers, electronic products, machinery, equipment,petrol, household appliances and components, and chemicals. Their trade valueapproximated 2.2 billion USD in the first two months of 2022, up 20 percentyear on year.
In terms of investment, Malaysiacurrently ranks second among the ASEAN nations and 10th among the 140countries and territories investing in Vietnam, with 668 valid projects worth13 billion USD. Vietnam has 21 valid projects with registered capital totaling 853million USD in Malaysia, making the latter the ninth biggest among the 78overseas investment destinations of Vietnam.
There are more than 1,000 Vietnamesestudents in Malaysia at present. The two sides signed a memorandum ofunderstanding on educational cooperation on March 6, 2019, and an agreement ontourism partnership in 1994. Since visa exemption was applied to ordinarypassport holders of the two countries in September 2001, the number ofMalaysian tourists to Vietnam has grown fast, topping 605,000 arrivals in 2019,rising 12.2 percent from the previous year.
About 29,000 Vietnamese people areliving in Malaysia, most of them manual workers.
Over the last couple of years, facingthe COVID-19 outbreak, the two sides have made joint efforts to cope with thepandemic. Vietnam donated 6,500 sets of personal protective equipment worth50,000 USD and 20,000 medical face masks to Malaysia.
Neermal Shunmugam, Chargé d’ affaires ofthe Malaysia Embassy in Vietnam, said the visit by PM Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabribin Yaakob aims to further enhance post-pandemic cooperation and also provides achance for both sides to explore new aspects of bilateral ties, discussregional and international issues of common concern, and promote bilateraltrade and investment.
Highlighting the trip’s significance, VietnameseAmbassador to Malaysia Tran Viet Thai expressed his hope that the visit willnot only set up good personal relations between the countries’ leaders but alsoopen up numerous opportunities for substantive cooperation and strengthen tiesbetween their peoples, businesses, and governments.
After two years of the countries’ bordershutdown to cope with the pandemic, Vietnam and Malaysia are set to recognise eachother’s vaccination certificates and fully reopen borders to facilitatebilateral travel, exchange, and business connections. This will be a greatchance for their enterprises, investors, workers, and students to come back to the other countru, thereby continuing to foster extensive and dynamiccooperation and generating more chances for lifting the Vietnam - Malaysia strategicpartnership to a new height, according to Thai./.
VNA
