Vietnamese Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Dang Xuan Dung meets with Prince Saud bin Talal bin Bader, Governor of Al-Ahsa (Photo: VNA)

As a key member of ASEAN, Vietnam has always upheld activeness and responsibility, contributing effectively to strengthening relations between ASEAN and the GCC, especially in 2018 when it assumed its role as a coordinating country of the ASEAN-GCC relationship, Dung said.

At this summit, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh will join senior leaders of ASEAN and the GCC to share major initiatives and measures to boost cooperation between the two regions, expand and deepen collaboration of ASEAN in general and Vietnam in particular with the entire GCC bloc and with each GCC member in the fields of common concern such as trade, investment, energy and food security, anti-terrorism, connectivity, tourism, promotion and protection of the rights of migrant workers, and people-to-people exchanges.

The diplomat said that GCC member states, including Saudi Arabia, are all priority cooperation partners of Vietnam in the Middle East and Africa.

With huge development potential, the bilateral relations will develop further in the coming time, Dung stated, adding that the PM’s visit to Saudi Arabia and his attendance at the summit this time will help consolidate political trust and deepen multi-faceted cooperation.

In the fields of economics, trade, and investment, Saudi Arabia is Vietnam's leading trade partner in the Middle East region. In 2022, two-way trade reached 2.7 billion USD, up 32.4% year-on-year, which shows that this is a potential field that the two countries need to exploit, especially in the import and export of agricultural products and food according to Halal standards.

He proposed the two countries continue speeding up negotiations towards the signing of agreements to complete the legal framework for bilateral collaboration to create a favourable environment for economic ties.

It is necessary to actively solve problems related to business practices and legal regulations in investment and business in each country, while enhancing information sharing about markets, and economic, trade and investment cooperation opportunities.

The ambassador also stressed the need to create favourable conditions for localities and businesses of the two countries to proactively participate in each other's promotion activities and programmes; and well organise the fifth meeting of the Vietnam-Saudi Arabia joint committee.