The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Benedetto Della Vedova, met the Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister, Ho Xuan Son, at the Farnesina today under the strategic partnership established in 2013. “We examined how best to strengthen and build upon relations between our two countries”, observed Della Vedova, “following Prime Minister Renzi’s visit to Hanoi in June 2014 and in the run-up to the ASEM Summit in Milan in mid-October”.
The talks focused on further increasing trade and investment and on inter-university cooperation, collaboration in the United Nations context, Vietnam’s participation in EXPO 2015, and the outlook for the free-trade agreement between the European Union and Vietnam. Other issues addressed were human rights and the death penalty. On this point, Della Vedova noted that Italy and the EUwill again be submitting a resolution for a moratorium on capital punishment at the forthcoming session of the UN General Assembly.
