Vietnam-Bulgaria enter a period of dynamic and comprehensive cooperation

The good friendship that has been continuously nurtured over the past 75 years between Vietnam and Bulgaria has been raised to a new height with the establishment of a strategic partnership. This is the result achieved during the official visit to the Republic of Bulgaria by General Secretary To Lam and his wife along with the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation.

General Secretary To Lam received President of the Republic of Bulgaria Rumen Radev on an official visit to Vietnam, at the Party Central Committee Headquarters on the afternoon of November 25, 2024. (Photo: Thong Nhat/VNA)

Over the past few days, the beautiful Land of Roses has been delighted to welcome General Secretary To Lam and his wife along with the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation with warm sentiments of a close relationship that has been tested and nurtured over many decades. The visit is of historic significance as it is the first time the head of the Communist Party of Vietnam has visited Bulgaria in 50 years, taking place at a time when the two countries are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

As one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam, Bulgaria has shown pure international solidarity and valuable support for Vietnam's cause of national liberation and defense. The image of thousands of Bulgarian students and people taking to the streets to protest the war in Vietnam will forever be a beautiful symbol of the friendly relationship between the two countries.

Before 1990, Bulgaria had helped train more than 3,600 scientists, experts at all levels and about 30,000 skilled workers, who were valuable high-quality human resources for the cause of building and developing Vietnam. Viet-Bun Hospital in Thai Binh and Viet-Bun Kindergarten in Hanoi were meaningful gifts that the Bulgarian people gave to Vietnam... With these historical pages, General Secretary To Lam's visit carried a message of sincere affection and respect of the Party, State and people of Vietnam for traditional friends, and was also an opportunity for the two sides to open up new cooperation spaces.

Over the years, Vietnam and Bulgaria have maintained an active cooperative relationship with practical cooperation initiatives. Many cooperation programs in the economic and trade fields have been implemented to expand market access opportunities and diversify supply chains for businesses of the two countries.

In 2024, bilateral trade turnover increased by nearly 30% compared to the previous year. In the first 9 months of 2025, many of Vietnam's key export products to Bulgaria continued to maintain impressive growth, especially agricultural products, textiles, and light industry. However, that result is assessed to be far from the potential for cooperation between the two countries.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has repeatedly expressed his admiration for the achievements of Vietnam after four decades of renovation as well as its impressive development in recent years, saying that Vietnam is developing very dynamically, creating many opportunities for cooperation between the two countries in new fields in addition to traditional fields. The two sides also need to take advantage of their geographical location to come up with effective cooperation solutions to promote the strengths of each country.

In recent years, Bulgaria has emerged as a notable innovation hub in Eastern Europe. Information technology and outsourcing services are a rapidly growing industry in Bulgaria. You have a highly skilled IT workforce, a well-developed IT infrastructure, and high-speed internet connections. Bulgaria also has a developed energy industry, including the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, which provides around 35% of the country’s electricity, as well as numerous coal and hydroelectric power plants, and is developing renewable energy such as wind and solar power.

Although its contribution to GDP has decreased significantly in recent decades, agriculture remains an important sector in the Bulgarian economy; especially organic agriculture is growing rapidly, with the number of organic farms increasing many times over the past decade, producing high-quality organic products that are popular in the domestic and foreign markets. Thanks to the special climate and soil conditions, the Damascus rose grown in Kazanlak has a high essential oil content, making this country the largest producer of rose essential oil in the world, bringing high economic value, likened to liquid gold...

Admiring the remarkable progress of Bulgaria, General Secretary To Lam affirmed that the country's current achievements are thanks to the development of science, technology, innovation and digital transformation, which help create high labor productivity and good product quality. This is also the development model that Vietnam has strived to implement.

In the coming time, the two sides need to increase sharing and closer cooperation to create great values, meeting the development needs of each country. In particular, it is necessary to combine Bulgaria's strengths in technology, innovation and high-quality human resources with Vietnam's production capacity and market size.

In fact, businesses from both countries are increasingly interested in each other and are looking for cooperation opportunities. This can be seen in the atmosphere of the Vietnam-Bulgaria Business Forum held during the visit of the Vietnamese high-ranking delegation to the Republic of Bulgaria with the participation of more than 100 businesses from both countries.

Bulgarian enterprises are interested in the Vietnamese market in the fields of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, renewable energy, agricultural processing and logistics. In contrast, Vietnamese enterprises consider Bulgaria as a "gateway" to the European Union market, thanks to its strategic geographical location, developed transport infrastructure and favorable business environment. Bulgaria is also considered a potential location with reasonable production costs, suitable for Vietnamese enterprises to invest in the production of processed agricultural products, textiles, footwear, thereby expanding their presence in the European market.

According to Vietnamese Ambassador to Bulgaria Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet, labor cooperation has emerged as a new and promising direction. Bulgaria is in great need of recruiting workers in the fields of mechanics, machine manufacturing, electronics, construction, IT, healthcare, food processing, etc. Faced with Bulgaria's shortage of human resources, more and more Vietnamese workers are coming to work.

Labor cooperation has emerged as a promising new direction. Bulgaria is in great need of recruiting workers in the fields of mechanics, machine manufacturing, electronics, construction, IT, medicine, food processing... Faced with Bulgaria's shortage of human resources, more and more Vietnamese workers are coming to work.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Bulgaria Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet

Vietnamese labor resources are highly appreciated for their skills, discipline and sense of responsibility, leaving a good impression in Bulgarian society. Bulgaria and Vietnam both wish to establish a new cooperation mechanism on labor, towards sustainable, humane and mutually beneficial cooperation. After Vietnam decided to exempt visas for Bulgarian citizens from August 2025, tourism businesses of the two countries have promoted cooperation in connecting tours, towards cultural, heritage and beach tourism. The two sides are also studying the possibility of cooperation in the fields of sports and creative culture, taking advantage of Bulgaria's strengths in gymnastics, classical music, performing arts, etc.

During the visit of General Secretary To Lam, the two leaders discussed directions to expand comprehensive cooperation in all fields and agreed to upgrade the relationship to a strategic partnership. Economic and trade cooperation was identified as one of the central pillars and main driving force for the Vietnam-Bulgaria relationship to move from “traditional” to “strategic-substantive-effective”.

The two leaders identified science and technology as a priority pillar of cooperation, capable of creating high value and making practical contributions to the socio-economic development process and transforming the growth model in both countries; focusing on areas where both sides have potential, strengths and cooperation needs such as training IT human resources in the fields of digital transformation, digital economy, digital infrastructure and e-government, pharmaceuticals, biomedicine, artificial intelligence (AI) and modern computer science, green energy, etc. This is identified as a strategic priority orientation for the 2030-2045 period.

The strategic orientations are creating dynamic movements to promote the cooperative relationship between the two countries to enter a more dynamic, substantial and comprehensive development phase, based on the foundation of traditional friendship, political trust and close attachment between the two peoples, for peace, prosperity, sustainable development of each country and prosperity of both peoples.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/viet-nam-bulgaria-buoc-vao-giai-doan-hop-tac-nang-dong-toan-dien-post917902.html