 President Vo Van Thuong and his wife in an overseas trip (File photo: VNA) |
The Asia-Pacific region and the APEC Forum are important priorities in Vietnam's foreign policy of promoting and elevating multilateral diplomacy, protecting security interests and development, and elevating national status.
During 25 years of participating in APEC (1998-2023), Vietnam has proactively contributed to the APEC Forum, proposed several initiatives and cooperative projects that have been highly appreciated by APEC members, promoted peace, stability, cooperation, and regional economic connectivity, and maintained APEC's role as the leading economic connectivity mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region.
Meanwhile, Vietnam-US relations have developed strongly recently, with the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership during US President Joe Biden’s visit to Vietnam in September, 2023 at the invitation of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
The two sides signed many cooperation agreements on economics, science-technology, education-training, and humanitarian issues, in which commercial contracts valued over 10 billion USD.
With the special significance of this year's APEC Economic Leaders’ Week and in the context of the Vietnam – US growing relations, President Thuong's trip to attend the event and his bilateral activities are of importance both multilaterally and bilaterally, helping to maintain and strengthen external relations for peace, stability, and favorable conditions for the country's development.