NDO/VNA - Vietnam always attaches great importance to further tightening the traditional friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation with African countries, said a Vietnamese official.

Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Hieu made the statement during his virtual meeting on August 24-25 with Ambassadors and Charges d'Affaires of African countries to Vietnam.

At the event, the largest of its kind since 2019, with the participation of 43 Ambassadors and Charge d'Affaires of African countries to Vietnam, Hieu informed them of Vietnam's policies for foreign relations and economic development after the 13th National Party Congress as well as its main orientations in cooperation with African countries and measures to promote cooperation between the two sides.

According to the Vietnamese official, despite facing many difficulties caused by COVID-19, the relationship between Vietnam and African countries has still achieved many encouraging achievements. The two sides have well maintained their political-diplomatic cooperation through online meetings and phone talks at all levels. They also recorded an encouraging growth in trade in 2020 and the first half of 2021. Cooperation in agriculture, energy and telecommunications continued to see positive changes.

The Ambassadors and Charge d'Affaires of African countries affirmed the importance of the good traditional relationship between Vietnam and Africa, and expressed their wish to further promote collaboration in fields of mutual interest.

They said they are impressed by Vietnam's socio-economic development achievements and appreciated Vietnam's role as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2020-2021 term as well as its contributions to maintaining peace and stability in Africa.

Hieu and the African diplomats applauded the active cooperation between Vietnam and African countries at multilateral forums, especially the United Nations, hoping that the two sides would continue to support each other, as well as enhance information sharing and consultations on regional and international issues of mutual concern.

In order to further improve the cooperation efficiency, they held that it is necessary to increase the exchange of delegations at all levels when the pandemic is put under control. In the near future, the two sides need to increase online exchanges and strengthen cooperation in priority areas such as trade, investment, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, health care, education, cultural and people-to-people exchange.

They should pay attention to expanding collaboration to potential fields like tourism, banking, aviation and digital economy, while promoting ties within the South-South Cooperation framework, especially in agriculture and COVID-19 combat.

It is necessary to review and accelerate negotiations for the signing of agreements in order to create a favourable legal framework for cooperation, they said.