AKP Phnom Penh, June 19, 2025 —

As Vietnam and New Zealand are celebrating their 50th anniversary of their diplomatic relations (June 19), Emeritus Professor Roberto Rabel from the Victoria University of Wellington’s Centre for Strategic Studies has highlighted the untapped potential for the two countries to strengthen cooperation and bring their ties to a new high.

In a recent interview with the Vietnam News Agency, he stated that the primary catalyst driving the robust Vietnam – New Zealand relations stems from their mutual interests in bilateral, regional, and global dimensions across economy, politics – diplomacy, security, environment, society – culture, and people-to-people exchange.

The complementary nature of both economies has created favourable conditions for trade and investment growth, both bilaterally and through their membership in major trading blocs including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Both nations have committed to promoting free, fair, and rules-based trade as the foundation for regional and global economic development.

In the meantime, they have shared interests in rules-based approaches to national, regional, and global security, ensuring that major powers do not dominate medium and small nations. This is demonstrated through their support for rules-based approaches to maritime governance as outlined in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Besides, they wish to see stronger measures to mitigate climate change impacts and support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change processes to address this existential challenge.

According to the professor, since the Strategic Partnership was established in 2020, Vietnam and New Zealand have witnessed steady growth in the relations. Beyond the remarkable 40% increase in bilateral trade over five years, political relations and multilateral interactions, particularly within the CPTPP framework, have remained highly positive. Additionally, people-to-people exchanges have flourished, with growing numbers of Vietnamese students and migrants in New Zealand, an expanding presence of Vietnamese restaurants serving the country's renowned cuisine, and increasing numbers of New Zealand tourists and businessmen to Vietnam.

He described their upgrade of the bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership this year as a symbolic milestone in the maturation of the relations.

Professor Rabel stressed that there remains considerable room to deepen cooperation by implementing concrete projects involving Governments, the private sector, and civil society in both countries. He took international education as an example, stating New Zealand offers excellent study and training opportunities that could attract more Vietnamese students and young professionals, while Vietnam should develop more programmes to facilitate travel, work, and research opportunities for New Zealand youth.

Alongside traditional cooperation areas like agricultural trade and tourism, the bilateral cooperation has been broadened to such emerging fields as maritime management, sustainable economy, and digital technology, he said, suggesting recovering and expanding regular direct flights are tangible ways to promote closer ties between the two countries.

Another critical step towards elevating the relationship is setting up coordination mechanisms to oversee the progress of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’s goals. Furthermore, he underscored the need to pen clear accountability provisions, timelines, and mechanisms for stakeholder groups of both countries to achieve tangible results in areas that advance the partnership’s common targets.

AKP-VNA