Singapore President's Vietnam visit to bolster all-around cooperation

Singaporean President Halimah Yacob and her husband will pay a state visit to Vietnam from October 16-20 at the invitation of President Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

This is the first state visit of a foreign head of state to Vietnam since the 13th National Party Congress and the first oversea trip of the President of Singapore since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The visit takes place amid both nations looking forward to the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic relations and the 10th anniversary of their strategic partnership in 2023.

Over the past years, the Vietnam - Singapore strategic partnership has seen positive development. Despite complicated developments of COVID-19, the two sides still maintained the exchange of delegations, letters of congratulation, and high-level visits.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has presided over and arranged many online talks between the two sides' leaders, with the cooperation in the Party, Government, State and National Assembly channels being constantly expanded.

The two sides have effectively utilized bilateral cooperation mechanisms, including the mechanism of the Ministerial Conference on connecting the two economies chaired by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, and political consultation at the deputy foreign ministerial level.

In 2022, in the context that the COVID-19 pandemic was under control, the two economies saw the recovery and growth. Both sides exchanged many high-level delegations, in which, the highlight was the State visit to Singapore by President Nguyen Xuan Phuc (from February 24-26, 2022) with many substantive results.

Parliamentary cooperation between Vietnam and Singapore has been promoted in recent years. The top legislators held online talks to discuss the substantive cooperation between the two legislatures.

The two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between the two NAs on the occasion of the President of Singapore's official visit to Vietnam in May 2022.

Besides high political trust, economic cooperation continues to be considered a bright spot in  bilateral relations. As soon as the pandemic was basically under control, Vietnam and Singapore lifted travel restrictions and resumed commercial flights in March 2022.

Despite being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the total trade turnover between the two countries reached US$8.3 billion in 2021, in which, exports stood at US$4 billion, and imports were US$4.3 billion, posting a year-on-year rise of 23.3%. Two-way trade hit US$ 6.9 billion during the first nine months of this year, up 16% on-year.

The island-city state remains ASEAN's largest investor in Vietnam, ranking 2nd out of 139 countries and territories investing in the country. As of August 20, Singaporean investors had 2,974 valid projects with a total registered capital of US$ 69.9 billion, accounting for 16.3% of total investment capital poured into Vietnam.

Meanwhile, by July 2022, Vietnam had 136 valid investment projects worth more than US$538 million in Singapore. The projects focus on such areas as science and technology, wholesale and retail, car and motorbike repairing, information and communications, and manufacturing and processing industry.

By the end of 2021, Singaporean investors had invested in building infrastructure facilities for 11 Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIPs) in Vietnam, with a total area of around 7,517 hectares.

In terms of transportation, Singapore is one of the aviation markets of special importance to Vietnam with the number of passengers arriving in Vietnam ranking 6th according to 2019 data.

Currently, the two nations' airlines have basically restored regular commercial flights, while cooperation in other fields such as security - defence, finance - banking, education - training, natural resources - the environment, law - justice between the two countries continues to be strengthened.
Both sides have closely cooperated in pandemic prevention and control. Singapore was one of the first ASEAN member states to provide medical equipment and supplies to Vietnam, with 122,400 doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

Currently, the Vietnamese community in Singapore numbers about 13,000, including roughly 7,000 students; more than 1,000 postgraduates and intellectuals, over 2,500 brides, and 2,500 workers.

Regarding the purpose and significance of the State visit to Vietnam by Singapore President Halimah Yacob, Vietnamese Ambassador to Singapore Mai Phuoc Dung stated that  the visit aims to deepen the strategic partnership signed by the two countries more than 9 years ago and at the same time concretize the results of bilateral cooperation in recent years.

Talking about the prospects for cooperation between the two countries after the visit, Ambassador Mai Phuoc Dung expressed his hope that within the framework of the visit, the two countries will sign an agreement on promoting cooperation in renewable.

During the visit, Singapore President Halimah Yacob will pay tribute to President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum in Hanoi, hold talks with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, and pay courtesy calls to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

She will receive the Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee, and visit the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park 1 (VSIP1) and work with leaders in the northern province of Bac Ninh.

The State visit to Vietnam by Singaporean President Halimah Yacob is expected to contribute to strengthening political trust and multi-faceted cooperation in such fields as politics-diplomacy, defence-security, economy, investment, labour and technology.

In particular, the visit will help further boost economic cooperation between the two countries towards a new height of connecting the two economies on a digital platform.