Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte on June 5 begins an official visit to Viet Nam at the invitation of his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte (Source: Getty Images)

The two-day visit aims to enhance the strategic partnership between Viet Nam and Italy across spheres, ranging from politics, diplomacy, national defence and security to economy, trade, investment, development cooperation, climate change combat, culture, education, science-technology and tourism.

It is also expected to promote the two countries’ coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums.

During the visit, the two sides will exchange views on regional and international issues of shared concern.

Viet Nam and Italy set up diplomatic ties on March 23, 1973 and promoted their relationship to a strategic partnership in 2013.

The two countries have maintained bilateral cooperation mechanisms such as the deputy foreign ministerial political consultation, the deputy ministerial defence policy dialogue and the joint commission on economic cooperation. They also support each other at multilateral forums and organisations like the United Nations (UN), the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

Two-way trade tripled within the past decade from 1.5 billion USD in 2009 to more than 4.6 billion USD in 2018. Viet Nam is the biggest trade partner of Italy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) while Italy is the third largest trade partner of Viet Nam in the European Union (EU).

(Source: VNA)