Taipei: Taiwan and Vietnam have signed an updated version of an education cooperation agreement in Taipei recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Monday. The agreement covers a wide range of collaborative areas including academic research, language exchanges, and talent cultivation, and is aimed at building a closer partnership between the two countries, MOFA said in a statement.

According to Focus Taiwan, Taiwan's representative to Vietnam, Liu Shih-chung, and Vu Tien Dung, representative of the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, signed the new version of the agreement during a ceremony on July 11. The updated agreement builds upon the foundation and spirit of the bilateral 2017 education cooperation pact and has been fully revised to reflect current international trends and the practical needs of the two sides.

Ministry of Education (MOE) Chief Secretary Lin Po-chiao, who attended the signing ceremony, lauded the new agreement in a separate MOE statement and said it reflected the recognition for Taiwan's technical and vocational training systems across Asia. He noted the growing demand for skilled professionals in Southeast Asian countries and expressed hope that Taiwan can help train the talent they need.

Previous agreements signed in 2006 and 2017 have led to several achievements, including the sending of Mandarin teachers to Southeast Asia and the signing of around 1,000 academic cooperation agreements between universities in the two countries. According to data from Taiwan's MOE, there were 39,695 Vietnamese students studying in Taiwan in the 2024 academic year, making Vietnam the largest source of international students in Taiwan, with 32.22 percent of the total. On the other hand, based on Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training's latest statistics at the end of 2023, Taiwan is also the fifth most popular study destination for Vietnamese students globally.