To Lam, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, will visit Australia from 9 to 12 August and meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on Tuesday. The Prime Minister's office announced the visit on Thursday.
It is To Lam's first visit to Australia. He leads the Communist Party of Vietnam, the only legal party in the country, and was appointed State President in April this year, holding both offices at once. Of the two, the party post is the senior.
The two governments elevated their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership on 7 March 2024, Vietnam's top diplomatic tier. The agreement covers defence and security, economic engagement, education, energy, innovation and digital cooperation.
The economic half of that has not moved much. Two way trade was worth about $23 billion in 2025 and each country is the other's eleventh largest trading partner. Vietnamese figures put the total at around US$14 billion, flat on 2024, with exports to Australia up 5.6 per cent and imports from Australia down 5.3 per cent.
Against that, the ambition on paper is considerably larger. Under a joint economic engagement strategy launched on 1 November 2021, the two governments set out to become top ten trading partners for each other and to double two way investment. Five years on the ranking has not shifted and the trade total has stopped growing. Both sides have since talked about lifting turnover to US$20 billion.
The flat year breaks a long run. Over the past two decades trade between the two countries grew by an average of 8.6 per cent a year, against 5.8 per cent for Australia's total trade over the same period, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Australia still sells slightly more to Vietnam than it buys, and the fall in 2025 was on the Australian side of the ledger.
“The Vietnam-Australia relationship is grounded in deep strategic trust, mutual interests, and a shared ambition for the future of our region," Albanese said in the announcement. He noted that around 350,000 Australians have Vietnamese heritage.”
Hanoi runs the same tier of partnership with the United States and with China, and has avoided formal alignment with either. Australia's defence cooperation with Vietnam carries no treaty obligation on either side, which is the difference between this relationship and the alliance arrangements Australia has with Washington. It also means the terms are negotiated afresh each time rather than inherited.
The Australian leg is part of a regional tour that also takes To Lam to New Zealand, running to 14 August.
The two leaders meet in Canberra on Tuesday 11 August. The Prime Minister's announcement set out the dates and the themes for discussion. It named no agreements for signature.
