The Consulate General of Vietnam in Guangzhou hosted a reception on September 9 to celebrate the 81st anniversary of Vietnam's National Day.
Nguyen Viet Dung, consul general of Vietnam in Guangzhou, said in his welcome remarks that Vietnam cherishes its traditional friendship with China and regards maintaining stable and sound China-Vietnam relations as an important priority in its foreign policy.
He said the two countries maintain close high-level exchanges, with bilateral cooperation expanding in trade, investment, culture, tourism and infrastructure, while people-to-people exchanges continue to flourish.
Guangdong, he added, plays a prominent role in China-Vietnam exchanges and leads Chinese provinces in cooperation with Vietnam in areas including trade, investment, education and vocational training.
Zhang Shaokang, vice chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said cooperation between Guangdong and Vietnam has delivered strong results across multiple fields in recent years, particularly in trade and economic cooperation.
Vietnam is Guangdong's largest trading partner in ASEAN, he said, and bilateral trade with Guangdong reached 162.42 billion yuan ($24.2 billion) in the first four months of 2026, up 24.6 percent year on year.
Zhang added that infrastructure cooperation between Guangdong and Vietnam is deepening, noting that Guangzhou Metro and Shenzhen Metro Group have won bids for projects in Hanoi, Phu Quoc and elsewhere, a development he described as a vivid illustration of accelerating cooperation between China and Vietnam.
At the ninth meeting of the China (Guangdong)-Vietnam Cooperation Committee held in Vietnam in October 2025, the two sides agreed on a series of practical outcomes covering trade, investment and vocational education, and achieved a breakthrough in infrastructure cooperation.
With the official launch of the China-Vietnam Tourism Cooperation Year 2026–2027, people-to-people ties between Guangdong and Vietnam have entered a new phase.
Looking ahead, Zhang said Guangdong is ready to work with Vietnam, guided by the consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties and two countries, to make full use of existing mechanisms and platforms, deepen industrial synergy, expand cooperation in emerging fields, and strengthen people-to-people exchanges.
He said the two sides should carry forward the traditional friendship of "comrades plus brothers" and contribute at the local level to building a higher-level China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance.
Reporter: Guo Chuhua
Photo: Guo Chuhua
