Affirming the comprehensive strategic partnership at a high level between Vietnam and Russia

On the eve of the State visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Vietnam, Associate Professor of Oriental Studies at the Institute of International Studies, University of International Relations (Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Anna Kireeva spoke about the significance of the visit to the relationship between the two countries as well as the expected contents in the agenda of the visit.

Associate Professor Kireeva affirmed that the visit has great significance for the relationship between Vietnam and the Russian Federation.

The last time Mr. Vladimir Putin visited Vietnam was in 2017 when he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit. This visit is expected to create political momentum for the relationship between the two countries.

Assessing the agenda of the visit, Associate Professor Kireeva stressed that currently, due to the changing international context, Russia focuses on strengthening relations with countries of the Southern Hemisphere, especially countries in Asia, where the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plays a key role.

Therefore, first of all, the visit aims to affirm the comprehensive strategic partnership at a high level between Vietnam and Russia and reaffirm the commitments to comply with the principles of developing relations of both countries.

The second content of the visit is to build an economic agenda, economic agreements, and specific tasks that both sides must achieve and implement by 2030.

The visit also allowed to summarize the results achieved by both sides, for example within the framework of the free trade area between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

In addition, a researcher from the University of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that now is a very important time when Russia is restructuring its foreign economic relations.

In it, she affirmed that Vietnam is a developing country, a growing economy and is fully capable of bringing great opportunities to Russia in terms of bilateral investment, production, agriculture, logistics connection, tourism market exploitation...

In return, Russia can provide Vietnam with many capabilities in the fields of digital technology, smart city construction and urban infrastructure, especially when the capital of the Russian Federation is one of the most advanced cities in the world in terms of urban infrastructure.

Associate Professor Kireeva also analyzed a number of specific measures to further develop Russia-Vietnam cooperation in many fields, expand existing cooperation plans and concretize new cooperation plans.

Increasing the volume of mutual investment is also very important. To do this, Ms. Kireeva believes that a special institution should be created to support cooperation, which could be a special fund or program.

The next area of ​​cooperation is education. According to Associate Professor Nga, the two countries can consider moving towards building a joint education program, including a dual degree system and more frequent internships.

This is Russian President Vladimir Putin's fifth visit to Vietnam. Vietnam is also one of the first countries that Mr. Putin visited after taking office for his fifth term as president in early May.

Associate Professor Kireeva emphasized that this shows that for Russia, Vietnam is an important partner in Southeast Asia, as well as affirms that Vietnam is a higher priority in Russia's foreign policy in general and not only in Southeast Asia.