The Vietnamese delegation attending the event led by Nguyen Quoc Dung, Deputy Foreign Minister, Chairman of SOM – Vietnam.

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 The dialogue. Photo: VGP

The two sides reviewed the past bilateral ties on the basis of the ASEAN-New Zealand Plan of Action for the 2016-2020 period with two major strategies of Human Strategy and Prosperity Strategy. ASEAN and New Zealand expressed their satisfaction over the positive developments in their bilateral relations, especially since the upgrade of their relationship to the Strategic Partnership at the ASEAN-New Zealand 40th Anniversary Commemorative Summit in Kuala Lumpur in 2015.

New Zealand attaches great importance to the relations with ASEAN and supports the bloc’s central role in a shaping the regional structure.

At the meeting, the Vietnamese official affirmed that Vietnam always attaches much importance to the strategic partnership between ASEAN and New Zealand, and highly valued the outcomes of the two sides' relationship.

On behalf of ASEAN making a keynote speech on ASEAN-New Zealand’s defense-security cooperation, the Vietnamese official highly appreciated the role and contribution of New Zealand to the fine bilateral cooperation results over the past years and emphasized that both sides need to enhance their collaboration to uphold the role and increase the efficiency of regional security cooperation mechanisms led by ASEAN, strengthen cooperation in building the capacity of coping with security challenges, including preventive diplomatic measures, and improvement of law enforcement agencies’ capacity, and maritime cooperation in the coming time.

In addition, as the host country of the ASEAN Integration Initiative Working Group (IAI), the Vietnamese official stressed that narrowing the development gap is an important priority of ASEAN and the Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam (CLMV).

Vietnam also proposed some specific measures and asked ASEAN partners, including New Zealand, to continuously support the bloc with technology and capacity building so that ASEAN can successfully implement the third stage of the Working Plan of the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI), towards the realization of the ASEAN Vision 2025.

Translated by Lam Anh