Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh will lead a high-ranking delegation to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Gulf Cooperation Council (ASEAN-GCC) Summit and pay a visit to Saudi Arabia from October 18-20.

The trip will be made at the invitation of the King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

This will be the first summit between ASEAN and GCC since the two sides established relations in 1990, and has important meaning for both.

The GCC comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.

Relations between the two regions have gained pace, with all six members of the GCC signing ASEAN’s peace pact, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, in recent years.

All six members of the GCC are priority cooperation partners of Vietnam, in areas such as politics, diplomacy, trade, investment, ODA, and labor.

Regarding Vietnam - Saudi Arabia relations, the two sides established diplomatic ties in 1999. In the 24 years since, bilateral relations have recorded encouraging progress, making Vietnam and Saudi Arabia important partners of each other in their regions.

Saudi Arabia is one of Vietnam’s leading economic partners in the Middle East, with bilateral trade rising 32.4 per cent year-on-year to $2.7 billion in 2022.

Vietnam mainly exports phones and components, garments, wood and wooden products, cashew nuts, rice, and machinery and equipment to the country.