TEL: I . HUi3. 1 u
PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
LUNCH IN HONOUR OF SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THlE CENTRAL
COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF VIETNAM
HIS EXCELLENCY MR DO MUOl
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBEiRRA, MONDAY 31 JULY 1995
General -Secretary, it is a great personal as well as an official pleasure to welcome you
and your party to Australia.
I remember very well our first meeting in Ho Chi Mimli City last year. I greatly
appreciated your courtesy to mc that day in travelling a long distance from a provincial
visit you were making to meet me. But this time you have come even further in
support of friendly relations between Australia and Vietnam.
Our meeting in Ho Chi Minh City went well over the time our officials had scheduled,
because we found in our discussion as we have found again today how much
Australia and Vietnam have to learn from each other and how much we can do
together. You have brought with you to Australia a number of senior colleagues and business
people from Vietnam.
Their presence at this lunch and the presence of so many senior Australian
businesspeople reflects thc growing recognition in both our countries of the
importance of this relationship and its potential. They are also very welcome guests.
You have arrived here at an important time for Vietnam and the region.
Last Friday Vietnam became the seventh member of ASEAN. Australia welcomed this
historic development.
We now have a new range of opportunities to build our relationship regionally as well
as bilaterally.
Eventually, we hope Vietnam will participate in the discussions we have been holding
on links between the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement and the Australia-New Zealand
Closer Economic Relations arrangement.
I ELL: 2
We also welcome the normalisation of relations between Vietnam and the United
States, which was announced early this month. As you know, Gencral-Sccretary, this
is a development Australia has consistently encouraged over manly years.
In fact, Australia's policy in the region has been guided by the conviction that the
region will be stronger, its institutions more resilient and its chanices for prosperity and
peaceful development greater if Vietnam is ffilly engaged in its development.
That is also why we think that in due course Vietnam is a natural member of APEC.
Both Australia and Vietnam have been through a period of deep economic and social
change in recent years.
In Australia, we have committed ourselves to an open economy. deeply integrated with
Asia. Our firture lies ftilly and unambiguously in the Asia-Pacific. For us, there can be
no U-turns.
We havc dismantled the tariff barrier which ring-fenced our country, opened up our
financial markets and embarked on a pro-growth, low-inflation policy with the
cooperation of the trade union movement.
These policies have given us rates of growth among thc highest in the industrialised
world. Vietnam's program of economic reform Doi Moi has also involved economic
restructuring on a large scale. Your successes are evident already, with growth rates
of more than 8 per cent a year, and a real increase in per capita GDP of 26 per cent
between 1990 and 1994.
In other words, the Vietnamese people are already experiencing the tangible benlefits of
this policy.
Your reform program reflects some of the qualities Australians admire most in the
Vietnamese people resilience, determination, an underlying pragmatism and
willingness to change. These are qualities that Australians share.
Australia's relationship with Vietnam is not new.
The war, with all its suffering. left scars which remain in both countries, but which I
believe are healing.
Australia was one of the first western countries to recognise the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam more than 20 years ago.
And we were the first to resume aid after the Cambodia settlement.
We have built a relationship of substance. In 1982 our trade was $ 2 million; ill 1994 it
was $ 402 million.
Australia is the sixth largest foreign investor in Vietnam, with over $ 920 million
invested last year.
TEL: 3
The companies involved are some of Australia's largest and most experienced like
BlI-P, Teistra and the ANZ Bank as well as smaller innovative businesses.
Our aid program has grown too from $ 10 million in 1990/ 91 to $ 72 million in
1995/ 96. We arc working with Vietnam in health, education and major infrastructure
projects. We witnessed just a short time ago the signing of agreements covering our cooperation
in building the huge My Thuan bridge project and Australia's commitment to draw up
an integrated master plan for the economic development of the Southern Economic
Focal Zone, based on Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau.
But the major component of our aid program is education. Currently 450 Vietnamese
are training in Australia and I would like our education links to grow. Because I
strongly share your view that education is the key to both our countrics' fuiture.
Our dialogue has grown and deepened with Vietnam across a wide range of issues.
Ministerial and other official exchanges are miultiplying rapidly.
We were very pleased that the Australian Parliamntary Consultative Delegation was
ablc to visit Vietnam in April this year and to hold very constructive discussions
throughout the country, including opening up a dialoguc on human rights. This was an
important visit and we were grateflu for your cooperation.
I am sure that one great long-term asset in our relationship is the skilled and
resourceful commnunity of around 140,000 Vietnamese Australians. This community
has enriched our country, with people like Professor Ngo Van Long of the Economics
Department at the Australian National University and Thu Nguyen Hoan, the deputy
head of our Office of Multicultural Affairs.
And the community will, I am sure, also enrich our bilateral relationship.
The air services agreement which was signed this morning will help this process. More
than 32,000 Australians many of them Vietnaniese-Australians travelled to Vietnam
in 1994 for business or tourism or to see their families. These personal links will
expand and broaden our relationship.
Australia wants more than a relationship with Vietnam: we want a partnership. One
that reaches across a wide range of official business and people-to-people activities.
One which grows out of a deeper understanding of each other's culture and society.
Your visit is an important milestone to this goal.
We welcome you to Australia. 1 HUq . J zu " 4u vu 1 1 % J_