Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President To Lam (R), then Party General Secretary, meets Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Hanoi in May 2025. Photo: Vietnam News Agency
This will be Lam’s first state visit to Sri Lanka in his capacity as Party general secretary and state president, with the most recent visit by a Vietnamese head of state to Sri Lanka taking place in 2011.
In May 2025, President Dissanayake paid a state visit to Vietnam and attended the United Nations Day of Vesak celebrations in Ho Chi Minh City.
During a meeting with Dissanayake in Hanoi on that occasion, Lam said Vietnam wished to leverage its strengths to cooperate with the South Asian nation in socio-economic development.
The Sri Lankan president welcomed the proposal, saying his country would create favorable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to invest in key and strategic sectors.
Both sides also agreed to expand cooperation in agriculture, education, culture, people-to-people exchanges, tourism and religion, as well as to promote the early establishment of a direct air route to enhance bilateral connectivity.
On the same occasion, the Sri Lankan leader extended an invitation for Lam to visit Sri Lanka.
Vietnam and Sri Lanka established diplomatic relations on July 21, 1970, and have since maintained long-standing friendship and multifaceted cooperation.
Sri Lankan political parties hold positive views of relations with Vietnam and consider the Southeast Asian country a model of economic development to learn from.
Sri Lanka has recognized Vietnam as a full market economy.
In 2025, bilateral trade reached about US$260 million, up 20 percent from 2024.
In the first quarter of 2026, trade stood at around $50 million.
Sri Lanka has 34 valid investment projects in Vietnam, with total registered capital of $43 million, ranking 64th out of 154 countries and territories investing in the country.
In the financial sector, the two countries signed an agreement on the avoidance of double taxation in October 2005 and another on cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matters in May 2025.
The upcoming state visit is expected to mark a new milestone in bilateral relations, opening up opportunities for stronger economic, trade, and investment cooperation and contributing to more effective responses to rapid shifts in the global political and economic landscape.
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean covering more than 65,600 square kilometers.
It has a population of about 30 million, with GDP estimated at around $100 billion and GDP per capita at nearly $4,500 in 2024.
