Vietnamese President Luong Cuong meets with Speaker of the National Assembly of Angola Carolina Cerqueira in Luanda on August 7. Photo: VNA

Speaker of the National Assembly (NA) of Angola Carolina Cerqueira described Vietnam as a friend who is always in the heart of her country while meeting with Vietnamese President Luong Cuong in Luanda on August 7 afternoon (local time).

The meeting, part of the Vietnamese leader’s state visit to the African country, followed his policy speech at a special plenary session of the Angolan parliament held on the occasion of the trip.

Welcoming President Cuong to the Angolan NA’s headquarters, Speaker Cerqueira said the visit is a message of friendship built on mutual respect and cooperation for common development.

She thanked her guest for the important policy speech, which reflects Vietnam’s open foreign policy of multilateralisation and diversification of external relations, as well as its determination to elevate relations with Angola and Africa at large.

She expressed her admiration for Vietnam’s socio-economic achievements, voicing her belief that the visit will herald a new chapter, further intensifying bilateral cooperation.

The Speaker highlighted the wish to enhance cooperation with the Vietnamese NA and Government agencies to promote the perfection of a legal framework for bilateral collaboration. She also called for stepping up exchanges between the countries’ young and female parliamentarians, helping reinforce ties in science – technology, culture, and people-to-people links.

For his part, President Cuong expressed his honour to visit and deliver a policy speech at the Angolan NA, noting that this was a crucial occasion for Vietnam to share its development orientations, viewpoints on the international and regional situation, and directions for developing relations with Angola 50 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Highly valuing the Angolan NA’s considerable role in and contributions to the country’s remarkable attainments and the enhancement of bilateral relations, he emphasised that Angola is a partner of leading importance, a comrade, and also a brother of Vietnam in Africa.

He highlighted the wish to open up a new phase of both qualitative and quantitative development of relations so as to turn the “cooperative partnership for common development” between Vietnam and Angola into a model of South – South cooperation.

President Cuong agreed with his host’s proposals on promoting the two parliaments’ role in their countries’ general relations.

He asked the two NAs to increase mutual visits, meetings, and sharing of experiences between their specialised committees and parliamentarians. He suggested the two sides establish parliamentary friendship groups and bolster coordination and consultation at multilateral forums like the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians.

At the meeting, the two leaders also agreed to continue strengthening political trust, boost high-level delegation exchanges via all channels, including the parliamentary one, and create favourable legal conditions for bilateral cooperation. They concurred in promoting the implementation of the signed agreements, accelerate negotiations on some important and foundational documents in such fields as investment, trade, oil and gas, energy, mining, agriculture, and banking.

On this occasion, President Cuong conveyed Vietnamese NA Chairman Tran Thanh Man’s invitation to Speaker Cerqueira to visit Vietnam in the near future. The host thanked and accepted with pleasure./.