Mr. Ignacio Arruda, Chairman of the Brazil - Vietnam Friendship Association and Brazil’s Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, affirmed that President Ho Chi Minh was the one who laid the foundation for the friendly relations and cooperation between Vietnam and Brazil since the beginning of the 20th century, when he arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1912 on his journey to find a way to save the country.
Vietnamese Ambassador to Brazil Bui Van Nghi works with Executive Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Luis Fernandes (Photo: Vietnamese Embassy in Brazil)
Decades after the historic event when Ho Chi Minh stopped in Rio de Janeiro, in 1968, students in São Paulo city and many other localities in Brazil actively participated in the movement to fight for peace and protested the war in Vietnam.
However, it was not until 1989 that Brazil and Vietnam established diplomatic relations. The Brazilian Embassy in Hanoi was opened in 1994 and Vietnam opened its Embassy in the capital Brasilia in 2000.
Over the past 35 years, Vietnam and Brazil have organized many visits between high-level delegations of the two countries, including the visits to Brazil by President Tran Duc Luong (2004), General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nong Duc Manh (2007), Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan (2015) and especially the official visit of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh last September.
On the Brazilian side, President Lula da Silva visited Vietnam in 2010, and Brazilian Communist Party Chairman Renato Rabelo also visited Vietnam in 2008. In November 2023, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, and current President of the Brazilian Communist Party, Ms. Luciana Santos visited Hanoi.
Referring to development cooperation between the two countries, Deputy Minister and Chairman of the Brazil - Vietnam Friendship Association Arruda said Brazil will send a delegation of experts from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation to Vietnam this year to carry out cooperative projects signed with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam. He affirmed that the Brazil - Vietnam Friendship Association will coordinate with the Vietnamese Embassy in Brasilia to organize a series of activities to celebrate 35 years of diplomatic relations in many forms, including activities commemorating President Ho Chi Minh’s working time at a restaurant at Santa Tereza street, Rio de Janeiro city.
He also said that in March, the Vietnamese Embassy and the friendship association of the two countries visited Rio de Janeiro Port to see the places where President Ho Chi Minh stayed and worked.
He emphasized the positive contributions of the association in strengthening the relationship of solidarity, friendship and bilateral cooperation, including disseminating leader Ho Chi Minh’s ideology through the book "Ho Chi Minh, the life and career of the leader of Vietnam's national liberation" by journalist Pedro de Oliveira.
This book is currently preparing for its third edition and is also being published in Spanish for release in Latin American countries. Along with Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's work “Some theoretical and practical issues on socialism and the path towards socialism in Vietnam" in Spanish, the two books will contribute significantly to disseminating the Vietnamese history, country and people on the international arena./.
Compiled by BTA