Vietnam, Laos step up cooperation in social sciences

Party General Secretary and State President To Lam urged the effective implementation of the action plan for the Vietnam–Thailand Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for 2026–2031 and expressed his hope to welcome the King and Queen of Thailand on a visit to Vietnam soon.

Entering a new era of national development with the aspiration of building a strong and prosperous country, the mindset of "growing alongside ASEAN" will guide Vietnam’s more proactive, positive, and substantive contributions to the ASEAN Community and the co-creation of the region’s shared future, noted Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Hoai Trung.

Thailand attaches great importance to its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Vietnam, and the two countries share a solid foundation of friendship, many common strategic interests and significant potential for cooperation, said President of the National Assembly and Speaker of the House of Representatives of Thailand Sophon Zaram.

Foreign relations are no longer viewed simply as relations with the outside world but as an integral component of national comprehensive strength and a responsibility shared by the entire Party, people, armed forces and political system.

The task of diplomacy is not simply to take the lead in opening doors. It must work alongside ministries, sectors, localities and businesses to turn the opportunities that have been opened up into concrete results.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam To Lam and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation will pay state visits to Australia and New Zealand from August 9 – 14.

The draft resolution aims to establish a set of practical and achievable performance indicators to serve as a basis for the NA's oversight and objective evaluation of judicial activities, while strengthening accountability and checks on the exercise of power.

Party General Secretary and State President To Lam said the current Party Statutes remain fundamentally valid but must also respond to emerging issues such as administrative apparatus restructuring, the two-tier local administration model, decentralisation, control over the exercise of power and digital transformation.

Party diplomacy has made breakthroughs in expanding and deepening relations with political parties around the world, helping consolidate political foundations and orient State-level relations. Meanwhile, people-to-people diplomacy has seen positive changes in its thinking, content and methods, with an expanding network of partners and more active and substantive participation in regional and international people-to-people mechanisms.

Speaking on the occasion of the 33rd Diplomatic Conference, ambassadors from Laos, Japan, the Philippines, China and South Africa highlighted Vietnam's growing international standing, its foreign policy of independence and self-reliance, and its commitment to peace, cooperation and sustainable development.

NA Chairman Tran Thanh Man said the requirement that “every citizen live and work in accordance with the Constitution and the law” remains hollow unless people can fully access, understand, and actually use the rules that govern their lives.

The NA held a secret ballot on the appointment and later adopted a resolution approving Nguyen Tien Hai as Minister of Home Affairs. The resolution was passed with 483 votes in favour out of 484 deputies participating in the electronic vote, accounting for 96.60% of those present.

Prime Minister Le Minh Hung ordered ministries, agencies and localities to stick closely to resolutions, agendas and plans, making sure every task is finished on time and to the standard required by the Party Central Committee, Politburo, Secretariat, National Assembly (NA) and Government.

Continuing the agenda of its ongoing first extraordinary session, the 16th National Assembly (NA) on August 3 heard proposals and verification reports on two bills, including the Law amending and supplementing several articles of the Law on Customs, and the Law revising Article 6 and Appendix IV on the list of conditional business lines under the Law on Investment.

Legislators on August 3 discussed the draft revised Law on Dissemination and Education of Law and the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on State Compensation Liability as part of the first extraordinary session of the 16th National Assembly.

NA Chairman Tran Thanh Man said that under the Party’s leadership and through close coordination among the NA, the Government, and relevant agencies, institutional and legal reforms have achieved positive results, especially in renewing the law-making mindset and applying technology, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence.

The first extraordinary session of the 16th National Assembly (NA) kicked off in Hanoi on August 3, with lawmakers set to consider and decide on a series of items, including 15 draft laws, four draft normative resolutions and a range of major issues concerning national development.

A good diplomat must first have firm political mettle and always take national interests as the compass for action. Every foreign affairs official must remember that behind them stand the Party, the country and the people, stressed Party General Secretary and State President To Lam.

Vietnam must consistently pursue its foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, self-strengthening, peace, friendship, cooperation and development, and diversification and multilateralisation of external relations, while promoting deep, comprehensive and effective international integration to safeguard the national interests to the fullest extent.

Since its inception in 1957, the Diplomatic Conference has served as the foreign affairs sector’s most important forum for reviewing international developments, assessing diplomatic performance, disseminating the Party’s foreign policy and guidelines, and defining priorities for the coming period.