Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives the French Minister in charge of transport.

The Prime Minister requested that France strengthen cooperation with Vietnam in the field of transportation, including human resource training, technology transfer, capacity building in management, and preferential loans.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot. (Photo: Duong Giang/VNA)

On March 21, during a meeting with Mr. Philippe Tabarot, Minister in charge of Transport (under the French Ministry of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion), who was visiting Vietnam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested that France encourage French businesses to cooperate and invest in Vietnam in the transportation sector, especially in participating in large-scale infrastructure projects.

Welcoming Minister Philippe Tabarot to Vietnam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh expressed his confidence that the visit would contribute to promoting transportation cooperation between Vietnam and France, yielding concrete results and further strengthening the long-standing relationship and comprehensive strategic partnership between Vietnam and France.

Recalling the positive impressions from his official visit to France in 2021, the Prime Minister conveyed greetings and best wishes from General Secretary To Lam, President Luong Cuong, and himself to French President Emmanuel Macron; and stated that Vietnam hopes to welcome the French President for a visit soon.

Highlighting some milestones in the long-standing, unique, and turbulent relationship between the two countries, including projects such as the North-South railway line and several airports in Vietnam that are still in operation, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Minister Philippe Tabarot highly appreciated the positive results that the two countries have achieved in the field of transportation in recent years.

In particular, Airbus is currently the largest supplier of aircraft to Vietnamese airlines; railway cooperation is a traditional area with projects already underway, such as the Nhon-Hanoi Station urban railway project, which has put the elevated section into operation...

The Prime Minister stated that Vietnam is focusing on strongly developing its transportation infrastructure, considering it one of the three strategic breakthroughs with many large projects encompassing all five modes (road, rail, air, maritime, and inland waterway). Developing transportation infrastructure will create new development spaces, new industrial zones, urban areas, and service sectors, reduce logistics costs (currently accounting for 17-18% of Vietnam's GDP), and enhance the competitiveness of products, goods, and the economy.

Highly appreciating France's strengths in the transportation sector and the vast potential for cooperation between the two sides, the Prime Minister stated that Vietnam strongly encourages, always welcomes, and requests France to promote increased cooperation and investment by French businesses in Vietnam in the transportation sector, especially in participating in large infrastructure projects. This includes promoting Airbus cooperation and technology transfer with Vietnamese airlines to establish aircraft repair and maintenance facilities (hangars) at airports; cooperating in the development of the aviation economy, the exploitation of outer space, underwater space, and maritime space; implementing railway and seaport projects, bringing in more large ships, and opening more direct shipping routes to Vietnam; and public-private partnerships in road development...

The Prime Minister stated that the two countries' economies can complement each other's strengths; he suggested that both sides build upon and further develop the achievements already made, and continue to promote cooperation in a sincere, trustworthy, feasible, and effective manner; affirming Vietnam's efforts to expedite the removal of institutional difficulties and obstacles to quickly implement projects with a focus on time, intelligence, and decisiveness.

Expressing strong agreement with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's remarks, Minister Philippe Tabarot stated that French President Macron highly values the relationship with Vietnam; he sent greetings and best wishes to the Prime Minister and expressed his desire to visit Vietnam soon.

Expressing his positive impression of Vietnam's recent efforts and achievements in innovation and development, the Minister said that he had just had a very productive working meeting with the Vietnamese Minister of Construction. Also during this visit, the French side, in coordination with the Ministry of Construction, organized a Vietnam-France seminar on high-speed rail.

The Minister emphasized France's strengths in the field of transportation, affirming that France and its businesses are always ready to cooperate with Vietnam, especially in supporting and cooperating in the implementation of strategic transportation infrastructure projects, as well as cooperating in human resource training, exchanging experiences, learning from each other, and developing higher-quality products and services to serve the people and connect the two countries, as Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has suggested.

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