Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended and witnessed a ceremony to sign 26 cooperation agreements between ministries, sectors and businesses of Vietnam and the UK on October 31 (London time) as part of his trip for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) and a working visit to the UK.

The agreements cover a wide range of fields from trade, agriculture, energy, education, training to environmental protection and sport.

The 26 agreements included a Letter of Intent to join the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (Leaf) Coalition, an Agreement on Cooperation to develop an action plan to strengthen linkages between the two countries’ higher education institutions, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on enhancing cooperation in education through exchange of experiences and best strategic aspects, and a Cooperation Agreement to develop human resource training programmes for the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment and support start-ups of Vietnam.

Notably, Vietjet Air and Rolls-Royce Group signed an agreement to provide engines and engine services for the wide-body fleet with a total value of $400 million, Sovico Group and Oxford University signed an MoU to cooperate and finance investment in research and education development with a total value of £155 million ($212 million), and Affinity Investment Fund and HDBank reached a grant of $300 million for a programme on sustainable development and climate change combat.

The signed agreements, the total value of which amounts to billions of US dollars in various fields, come as part of a broader push for stronger relations between the two countries.

VIET NAM NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK