Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son receives WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

(Baoquocte) - On the morning of May 18, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son hosted a reception for WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who is on a working visit to Vietnam from May 17-19, 2023.

On May 18, Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son hosted a reception for WTO Director-General Okonjo-Iweala (Photo: MOFA)

Welcoming WTO Director-General Okonjo-Iweala's visit to Vietnam, Vietnamese Foreign Minister expressed his belief that the visit contributes to strengthening the Vietnam - WTO cooperation relationship.

Vietnam's consistent policy is to actively and proactively integrate into the world, support an open, transparent, fair and rules-based multilateral trading system with the WTO at the centre, he stated.

He highly appreciated the leadership role of the Director- General in forming WTO's policy priorities in order to enhance the role of the organisation in the multilateral trading system, strengthen its linkages with other international organizations and promote the WTO reform process and the recent successful holding of the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in June 2022.

At the meeting, from her part, the WTO Director-General praised Vietnam's active role in the WTO, including its participation in important rounds of negotiations and contribution to the reform and improvement of the WTO efficiency.

The Director-General highly appreciated Vietnam's impressive achievements in socio-economic development over the past time, saying that Vietnam is a good model and hopes that Vietnam will share its experience with developing countries in the field of integration and socio-economic development.

Okonjo-Iweala also shared some of the WTO's cooperation priorities in the coming time, such as the promotion of WTO reform, soon restoring the full functioning of the dispute settlement mechanism, and expanding the external agenda apart from traditional economic and trade issues, especially e-commerce and investment facilitation, strengthening the coordination between the WTO and other international organizations to join hands in responding to global issues such as the pandemic diseases, climate change, food security, ect.

Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son hosted a reception for WTO Director-General Okonjo-Iweala: Overview of the meeting (Photo: MOFA)

The WTO Director General also expressed her hope that Vietnam will actively contribute to these processes, soon ratify the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies and coodinate for the success of the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference.

Foreign Minister Son affirmed that, as a responsible member of the WTO, Vietnam always strives to promote its proactive and active role in the cooperation frameworks of the WTO. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam will continue to work closely with relevant ministries and agencies to promote Vietnam's active and constructive contributions to the WTO.

The two sides also discussed cooperation programs of the WTO in training and capacity building for Vietnam's foreign affairs staff, as well as financial and technical support to help Vietnam making a deeper integration and practical contributions to WTO activities.