Vietnam Party chief, State President To Lam leaves for state visit to China

Party General Secretary and State President To Lam, his spouse and a high-ranking delegation of Vietnam left Hanoi on Sunday morning for a state visit to China.

The Vietnamese leader’s visit from August 18-20 is made at the invitation of China's Party General Secretary and State President Xi Jinping and his spouse.

Lam is accompanied by Do Van Chien, a Politburo member, Secretary of the Party Central Committee (PCC) and President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee; Le Minh Hung, a Politburo member, Secretary of PCC and head of the PCC’s Commission for Organisation; Nguyen Xuan Thang, a Politburo member, President of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Chairman of the Central Theory Council; Gen. Phan Van Giang, a Politburo member and Minister of National Defence; Sen. Lieut. Gen. Luong Tam Quang, a Politburo member and Minister of Public Security; Le Hoai Trung, Secretary of PCC and head of the PCC’s Commission for External Relations; Nguyen Duy Ngoc, Secretary of PCC and Chief of the PCC Office; Tran Luu Quang, a PCC member and Deputy Prime Minister; and Nguyen Khac Dinh, a PCC member and Vice Chairman of the National Assembly; among others.

This will mark To Lam's first overseas trip since he was elected Vietnam's Party chief early this month.

Following the highly successful official visit to China by the late Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (October 2022) and the state visit to Vietnam by Party General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping and his spouse (December 2023), the two sides issued a joint statement on "continuing deepening and elevating the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries and building a Vietnam-China community with a shared future that carries strategic significance" and signed 36 cooperation agreements across various fields.

In terms of substantive cooperation in areas such as trade, investment and tourism, Vietnam maintains its position as China's largest trading partner within ASEAN and its fifth-largest trading partner globally by country. Bilateral trade volume in 2023 reached $171.9 billion, Vietnamese official data shows.

In the first six months of 2024, bilateral import-export turnover amounted to $94.5 billion, an increase of 24.1% year-on-year), with Vietnam exporting $27.8 billion to China, up 5.3% and importing $66.7 billion from China, up 34.1%. The Southeast Asian country's trade deficit with China stood at $38.9 billion, a 66.7% rise.

In 2023, China's investment in Vietnam reached $4.47 billion across 707 projects, making it the fourth-largest investor in Vietnam by registered capital and the largest in terms of the number of projects.

In the first six months of 2024, China ranked fifth with registered capital of $1.299 billion but led in the number of newly licensed projects with 447 projects.

As of end-June 2024, cumulative Chinese investment in Vietnam reached $28.23 billion, ranking it seventh out of 148 countries and territories with investments in Vietnam, with 4,667 valid projects.

The Chinese have invested in 19 out of 21 sectors open to foreign investment and across 55 out of 63 provinces in Vietnam.

In terms of tourism, after three years of interruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam welcomed 1.75 million Chinese visitors in 2023, making China the second-largest source of tourists to the country. In the first seven months of 2024, Vietnam received 2.14 million Chinese visitors, accounting for 27.1% of total international arrivals to Vietnam, second only to South Korea.