Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son and Second Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Darussalam Dato Erywan Pehin Yusof. Photo: Hong Nguyen/baoquocte.vn

Minister Son, who is paying an official visit to Brunei, said he hopes the Sultan would continue to pay attention to promoting the Vietnam-Brunei Comprehensive Partnership and suggested the two sides continue to closely coordinate at multilateral and ASEAN frameworks.

He and Second Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Dato Erywan Pehin Yusof on Wednesday co-chaired the second meeting of the Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation (JSBC-2) between the two countries.

The two sides agreed to accelerate the building of an action programme implementing the comprehensive partnership for 2023-2027, arrange visits by leaders, materialize signed agreements, extend the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on agriculture and fishery, and coordinate to cope with traditional and non-traditional security challenges.

The two sides will encourage their businesses to step up connectivity, diversify the supply and trade structure and seek investment opportunities, especially in potential areas like agriculture-fishery, forestry, energy-oil-gas and processing industry.

The two ministers also consented to step up cooperation in education and people-to-people exchange between the two countries and within the framework of ASEAN, diversify tourism activities, and encourage carriers to consider opening more direct air routes, and promote cooperation between universities.

They agreed to continue closely cooperating with each other, promoting ASEAN's common principles and stances on relations with partners, as well as in the Myanmar and East Sea issues; step up the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and closely coordinate in negotiations on an effective and efficient Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) in accordance with international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).