Vietnam’s top politician visits New Zealand
ELTOs meet H.E. Mr Nong Duc Manh, General Secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party
The Intake 29 ELTO Officials from Vietnam were lucky to be studying in New Zealand when Viet Nam’s General Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee, H.E. Mr Nong Duc Manh, visited for three days in September 2009. During the visit they joined the crowds welcoming him at Parliament and later met with him along with other Vietnamese people in Wellington.
The General Secretary was accompanied by a number of senior Party officials as well as the three key Vietnamese Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Planning and Investment, and an Education Vice-Minister. The visit started in Wellington and then moved on to Auckland, and included separate meetings between the General Secretary and the Governor-General, the Prime Minister (the General Secretary’s host), the Speaker of Parliament and Leader of the Opposition amongst other official and less formal activities.
According to the New Zealand Embassy in Hanoi, the visit was significant for three reasons:
As head of the Politburo, General Secretary Manh is a very senior Vietnamese visitor who does not travel widely overseas. The fact that he came confirms the importance that Viet Nam assigns to the New Zealand relationship, and also gave a significant profile to New Zealand in official circles and the media in this country. Combined with President Triet’s visit in 2007 and then-Prime Minister Khai’s visit in 2005, New Zealand has had very good exposure at the top levels of the Vietnamese leadership in recent years.
During the visit, General Secretary Manh and Prime Minister Key released a joint statement announcing that New Zealand and Viet Nam would establish a bilateral Comprehensive Partnership. Essentially, this is recognition at the highest level that there is scope for both countries to move closer together in fields such as economic and trade cooperation, research science and technology collaboration, defence, police and customs cooperation, education and investment links. The joint statement can now be used as a foundation on which to build stronger and deeper ties – exactly how we do that is now under discussion, but the fact that both countries were keen to take this step is another vote of confidence in the relationship.
Lastly, the accompanying visits by the three Ministers allowed our Ministers to hold useful discussions with their counterparts on a range of current political and economic issues. The Trade and Foreign Ministers also participated in a business lunch hosted by the NZ-ASEAN Business Council in Auckland, which enabled them to promote trade and investment opportunities in Viet Nam to an interested audience.