Italy attaches importance to relations with Vietnam: President Mattarella

Thứ Sáu, 13/05/2022, 20:21

Italy attaches great importance to further developing its strategic partnership with Vietnam, a leading partner of Italy in ASEAN, President Sergio Mattarella told newly accredited Vietnamese ambassador Duong Hai Hung at a reception on May 12.

Ambassador Duong Hai Hung (L) presents the credentials to President Sergio Mattarella in Rome. (Photo: VNA)

Ambassador Duong Hai Hung (L) presents the credentials to President Sergio Mattarella in Rome. (Photo: VNA)

Mattarella recalled the good impression of his visit to Vietnam in 2015 and thanked Vietnam for providing face masks to Italy during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He spoke highly of the positive development of the Italy-Vietnam relations, and expressed his wish that the relations would be further developed comprehensively and substantively towards new areas of cooperation such as climate change adaptation, digital economy, and renewable energy, both bilaterally and multilaterally.

For his part, Ambassador Hung, who presented the State President’s credentials to President Mattarella, said it is his great honor to take on new mission in Italy, a country that plays an important role in Europe and the rest of the world.

He welcomed the recent positive developments in the relationship between Italy and ASEAN as well as its contributions to the EU’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.

The Ambassador emphasized that Vietnam desires to boost the strategic partnership with Italy, while thanking Italy for promptly providing more than 2.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 for Vietnam.

He vowed to make every effort to fulfill his duties, contributing to promoting the extensive development between the two countries.

On this occasion, the Ambassador conveyed President Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s invitation to President Sergio Mattarella to visit Vietnam to mark 50 years of bilateral diplomacy and 10 years of the strategic partnership between Vietnam and Italy in 2023.

President Mattarella happily accepted the invitation to visit Vietnam again.

VOV