General Secretary To Lam and his wife begin their visit to Bulgaria.

After successfully concluding the visit to Finland, on the evening of October 22 (local time), the plane carrying General Secretary To Lam and his wife Ngo Phuong Ly and the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation arrived at Sofia International Airport.

Welcoming General Secretary To Lam and his wife and delegation at the airport, on the Bulgarian side were: Mr. Atanas Zafirov, Chairman of the Socialist Party, Deputy Prime Minister; Mr. Roussi Ivanov, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Presidential Palace; Mr. Mircho Ivanov, Director of the Protocol Department, Presidential Palace.

On the Vietnamese side, there were: Vietnamese Ambassador to Bulgaria Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet; staff of the Vietnamese Embassy and the Vietnamese community in Bulgaria.

to lam 7.jpg — Welcoming ceremony for General Secretary To Lam and his wife at Sofia International Airport. Photo: VNA

The General Secretary's visit takes place at a time when the two countries celebrate the 75th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations and this is the first visit by a General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam after Bulgaria's regime transformation in 1990.

The visit also demonstrates Vietnam's respect for traditional partners and friends who have provided valuable support and contributions to the past struggle to protect the Fatherland and the current cause of national construction and development...

This visit will be an opportunity for the leaders of the two countries to set strategic directions, bringing the Vietnam - Bulgaria relationship to a new level, especially in areas of cooperation where Bulgaria has strengths and Vietnam has needs such as information technology, quantum, artificial intelligence (AI), digital transformation, green transformation, biomedicine... At the same time, this is also an opportunity for the two countries to firmly build a bridge of trust connecting Bulgaria with ASEAN and vice versa, Vietnam with the EU.

As one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam, since 1950, the Vietnam - Bulgaria friendship has been carefully cultivated by generations of leaders and people of the two countries.

In August 1957, President Ho Chi Minh paid an official friendly visit to Bulgaria, laying the foundation and opening a period of good development in the relationship between the two countries with valuable material and spiritual support and assistance that Bulgaria gave to Vietnam.

The Vietnamese people always remember the image of thousands of Bulgarian students and people taking to the streets to protest the war in Vietnam. Viet-Bun Hospital in Thai Binh and Viet-Bun Kindergarten in Hanoi are meaningful gifts that the Bulgarian people gave to the Vietnamese people. Bulgaria has trained thousands of university and postgraduate experts and tens of thousands of skilled workers for Vietnam...

In terms of politics and diplomacy, the two sides regularly maintain exchanges of delegations at high and all levels, periodically deploy bilateral cooperation mechanisms, thereby creating a foundation of deep political trust.

Two-way trade turnover has grown continuously in recent years. Regarding education and training, the two countries have signed a Cooperation Program for the period 2025-2028 and are considering expanding the training cooperation environment in Bulgaria's strong fields such as information technology, cyber security, e-government, public administration, etc.

Cooperation in defense, security, culture, labor... is increasingly seeing new developments. The two sides are also implementing scientific research cooperation tasks; establishing a Science and Technology Cooperation Committee, focusing on new fields.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/tong-bi-thu-to-lam-va-phu-nhan-bat-dau-tham-bulgaria-2455505.html