Viet Nam’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) Ho An Phong and Director of Sports Authority of Viet Nam Dang Ha Viet received Chen Yijun, member of the standing board of the Guangxi Province’s Party Committee and head of the committee’s publicity department, and her delegation during their visit to Việt Nam.
Welcoming Chen to Ha Noi, Deputy Minister Phong said the working session would be a valuable chance for both sides to discuss issues concerning to culture, sports and tourism.
Deputy Minister Phong said Guangxi was a province that shared a long border with Viet Nam. Both two sides had a very special relationship as Guangxi was the locality where Viet Nam’s President Ho Chi Minh lived and commanded the Vietnamese revolution during the war time.
After many years, Guangxi still preserved many relics and exhibition houses about President Ho Chi Minh.
He said, currently, the Huu Nghi international border gate was a trade gateway that played a key role for two countries to transport tourists and goods from China through Viet Nam to ASEAN countries and vice versa.
Last August, the late General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong personally came and planted a ‘Friendship Tree’ there.
Since the historic visit to China by the late General Secretary Trong in 2022, many State-leveled visits of both two countries’ politicians were organised.
They were a visit to Vietnam of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and Chinese President Xi Jinping (November 2023) and a visit to China of Vietnamese General Secretary and President To Lam (August 2024). Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh twice held talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in October and November to strengthen the strategic and comprehensive cooperation, building a community with a shared future between the two countries.
Viet Nam’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Ho An Phong (right) and Chen Yijun, member of the standing board of the Guangxi Province’s Party Committee at the reception on November 26 in Ha Noi.
Through those activities, the cultural, sports and tourism exchanges between Viet Nam and China had been constantly promoted, helping to build a "stronger social foundation", Deputy Minister Phong said.
During his visit to Yunnan Province, Deputy Minister Phong witnessed remarkable results of cooperation between the two countries. Among them were two cultural and tourism promotion events held in Kunming and Chongqing.
Deputy Minister Phong emotionally visited President Ho Chi Minh's relics in China, which was a proof of the long-standing relationship that President Ho Chi Minh and Chairman Mao Zedong tried to establish and develop.
In recent years, Viet Nam and China built close relationship. Ministers of the two countries held high-level talks which strengthened the cooperation in culture, sports and tourism and pushed the relationship to further growth.
Viet Nam sent officials to China for high-level trainings in the fields of culture, sports and tourism.
Deputy Minister Phong also said that the potential cooperation between Viet Nam-China in these fields was still very large. There were still areas that needed to be exploited to match the relationship of the two countries.
He hoped that in the upcoming time the two sides should regularly hold annual meetings of ministries’ leaders; effectively implement the Viet Nam - China Cultural and Tourism Cooperation Plan for the period 2023-27; strongly promote the implementation of the "Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of cultural industry" between the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Viet Nam and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China.
Regarding sports, Deputy Minister Phong proposed Guangxi to receive potential Vietnamese athletes to train with Chinese high quality experts and arrange them to practise with Chinese youth and national teams in key sports training centres.
He asked the Guangxi side to grant Chinese Government scholarships to Vietnamese students, PhD students, and sport officials in their strong fields such as sport management, sport medicine, sport science, and sport communications.
Vietnamese and Chinese representatives pose for photos after their working session at the Viet Nam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism head quarter in Ha Noi on November 26.
Taking this opportunity, Deputy Minister Phong wished to hear opinions from Head of the Committee’s Publicity Department Chen to effectively promote the two sides’ cooperation in the fields of culture, sports and tourism.
Ms Chen thanked Deputy Minister Phong for taking the time to receive her delegation and the Vietnamese MCST for always paying attention and promoting cooperation in these fields.
She said, with 21 international border gates, 4 national border gates and 12 land border gates, Guangxi was divided into 14 prefecture-level cities which were in turn subdivided into county-level divisions such as districts, county-level cities, counties, and autonomous counties.
The province was home to charming landscapes and an area with important geographical features with rivers and seas. Guangxi had a lot of potential to carry out wild tourism associated with the high-tech agriculture development, as well as promoting cooperation in cultural tourism, agriculture and trade.
Guangxi is bordered with 4 provinces of Viet Nam -- Cao Bang, Ha Giang, Lang Son and Quang Ninh. The waterfall tourist landscape areas -- Ban Gioc (Viet Nam) and Detian (China) -- were identified by the Guangxi government models for China's cross-border tourism cooperation with neighbouring countries.
Also according to Ms Chen, Guangxi welcomed 80,600 Vietnamese tourists, of which 19,800 visited Ban Gioc Waterfall in 2024. The provincial Department of Culture and Tourism also welcomed 33 Vietnamese tourism agencies to visit and exhibit.
Along with that, many other tourism events were organised showing the great potential in cooperation between the two countries in this field.
Ms Chen said these were favourable factors to strengthen the cooperation between the two sides.
She also expressed her high agreement with Deputy Minister Phong’s proposals related to culture and sports, which would contribute to the strong development of these fields.
Appreciating the results of the meeting, Deputy Minister Phong hoped that the two sides would soon develop a cooperation plan to put the discussed and agreed issues into effective implementation. It would help promote cultural, sports and tourism cooperation between the two countries in depth./.
Thanh Ha