PM Phuc congratulated Muhyiddin Yassin for his appointment as the eighth PM of Malaysia and lauded measures adopted by the Malaysian government to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also shared Vietnam’s experience in fighting the epidemic and spurring economic development in the new normal situation.

The PM spoke highly of the two countries’ coordination in repatriating their citizens over the recent past, and used the occasion to thank Malaysia for its support for Vietnam’s initiatives, as well as ASEAN’s efforts against the pandemic.

For his part, Muhyiddin Yassin congratulated Vietnam on its success in the pandemic fight, and highly valued the country’s initiatives and leading role in ASEAN’s efforts to mitigate socio-economic impacts caused by the pandemic, as reflected through the ASEAN Chairman’s Statement 2020 on February 14, and the online Special ASEAN and ASEAN 3 Summits on COVID-19 on April 14.

Both leaders agreed to step up the bilateral ties through all-level meetings, join hands to organise regular bilateral cooperation mechanisms, including the sixth meeting of the joint committee on economic, scientific and technological cooperation, and early approve the action programme to implement the strategic partnership for 2020-2025.

Given a range of challenges faced by the region and the world, the two sides vowed to make greater efforts to soon raise their bilateral trade to 15 billion USD, and promote two-way investment so as to maintain their position in the top 10 economic partners of each other.

They also agreed to enhance bilateral coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums.

PM Muhyiddin Yassin committed to further cooperating with and supporting Vietnam so that it successfully perform the roles of ASEAN Chair in 2020 and a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 2020-2021.

Malaysia will work to contribute to the success of the upcoming 36th ASEAN Summit, he pledged.

PM Phuc affirmed that Vietnam strongly backs Malaysia’s organisation of the APEC Economic Leaders’ Week in the time ahead.

The two Government leaders stressed the significance of maintaining peace, stability, freedom and security of navigation and overflight in the East Sea.

They agreed to make join efforts to preserve ASEAN’s solidarity and common stance, and promote result-oriented negotiations on a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) in line with international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS)./.VNA