Hanoi (VNA) - President of the Swiss National Council Martin Candinas’sofficial visit to Vietnam from June 27-30 is to strengthen the good cooperationbetween the two countries, and consolidate the good relationship between theirtwo legislative bodies, Swiss Ambassador Thomas Gass told the Vietnam NewsAgency on the threshold of the visit.

The trip will help Martin Candinas and the Swiss NationalCouncil delegation understand more about cooperation opportunities in therapidly booming economic development of Vietnam, and promote discussionsrelating to the signing of a free trade agreement between Vietnam and theEuropean Free Trade Association (EFTA) so as to promote bilateraltrade-investment cooperation in the coming time.

According to the diplomat, EFTA is an intergovernmentalorganisation established to promote free trade and economic integration for thebenefit of four member countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, andSwitzerland. These four countries are not included in the European Union-VietnamFree Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

Like the Vietnamese National Assembly, the Swiss NationalCouncil also has the role of overseeing the activities of state administrativeagencies. And during his visit to Vietnam, President Martin Candinas willsupervise the management and implementation of a technical assistance package worth70 million CHF (78.1 million USD) for Vietnam from the Swiss Government for the2021 – 2024 period, focusing on the fields of environmental protection andeconomic reform; and other Swiss projects in Vietnam.

Regarding the bilateral relations, Thomas Gass said that therelationship has developed strongly over the past 52 years, not only in politicsand multilateral cooperation, but also in economic cooperation, technicalassistance, trade and investment, scientific research, culture, tourism, andpeople-to-people exchanges.

Switzerland always attaches importance to its friendship andcooperation with Vietnam, and at the same time identifies Vietnam as anincreasingly important economic partner and the two sides have a lot of roomfor cooperation, he said.

“We look forward to accelerating the negotiation process ofthe Vietnam-EFTA; at the same time, strengthen bilateral cooperation toimplement the Sustainable Development Goals in the fields of finance-banking,supporting the business-start-up community, science-technology,education-training, tourism, climate change response and people-to-peopleexchanges. These are also the topics that we want to discuss with Vietnameseleaders during the visit of President Martin Candinas,” said the diplomat.

Regular high-level exchanges between the two countries havepaved the way for ever-increasing trade and investment relations.

The diplomat went on to say that Vietnam has greatpotential in innovation and digital transformation, especially when it has avery dynamic and creative young population. And if it takes advantage of thisstrength, Vietnam will certainly continue to develop with great strides.

In the context that Vietnam is implementing theSocio-Economic Development Strategy for the 2021-2030 period with science andtechnology playing a key role and Switzerland has strengths in the fields ofinnovation and transformation, Switzerland to further strengthen cooperationbetween the two countries in science and technology, education and training,towards establishing a partnership framework on innovation, he stated.

Switzerland will welcome Vietnamese delegations to exchangespecific cooperation, including cooperation between leading universities of thetwo nations.

Switzerland will use new and digital technologies, forexample in financial technology applications, using e-commerce platforms, ormanagement of public assets; and support innovative solutions to improveresilience to climate change and urban planning towards sustainable developmentin cities for its activities in Vietnam, he added./.