Following the Party's orientation and guidelines on foreign affairs and international integration in recent years, Lao Cai province has constantly made efforts, proactively and actively, to build and promote the development of external relations. As a result, international cooperation is increasingly expanding; foreign affairs and international integration are strengthened. International relations of Lao Cai province are strengthened and developed, maintaining political stability, creating a favorable environment for local socio-economic development.

Currently, foreign relations are both a premise and a motivation for the province's socio-economic development. Through friendly cooperative relationships with countries, territories and international organizations, typically the comprehensive cooperation between Lao Cai province and Yunnan province (China), Lao Cai province has actively created, seized and taken advantage of many opportunities to develop a diversified, dynamic economy and develop society in a comprehensive and sustainable manner. The role of foreign relations is demonstrated through the following contents.

Firstly, the extensive external relations help Lao Cai to maximize its advantages from its political and economic position to serve the socio-economic development. Located on the economic corridor of Kunming - Lao Cai - Hanoi - Hai Phong - Quang Ninh, it is the center of the North - South economic corridor in the cooperation of countries in the Mekong sub-region and has an international border gate to connect Lao Cai with China. Lao Cai - as a "gateway" - has become an important area, a major trans-shipment point for goods in trade activities between Vietnam, ASEAN countries and the large southwestern region of China. In particular, thanks to the comprehensive, friendly and strong cooperative relationship with Yunnan province (China), goods trade activities, and the development of the border gate economy in the province have achieved positive results. Specifically, in the period 2015 - 2019, the 2-way turnover increase averaged 22.5% annually; particularly in 2019, the total turnover of goods clearance between the two provinces reached US $ 3.7 billion, an increase of 22.9% compared to 2018. Currently, the Lao Cai Border Gate Sub-Committee (Vietnam) and the Yunnan Border Cooperation Office (China) are actively coordinating and agreeing on the plan to build a "model border gate" at the location of the international border gates between Lao Cai – Hekou for approval and early implimentation. The application of the "model border gate" model will continue to be the premise and motivation for the economic development of Lao Cai border gate in the coming years.

In addition, the friendly cooperation between Lao Cai province and the neighboring province of Yunnan (China) has been contributing to promoting trade promotion and cross-border economic activities. The Vietnam - China Border Trade Fair held annually in Lao Cai city (Lao Cai province) and Hekou district (Yunnan province) is an opportunity for hundreds of domestic and foreign enterprises to participate, exchange and promote potential products, seek cooperative opportunities and organize the signing of high-value economic contracts. Extensive external relations have once again affirmed the important role in promoting the advantages of economic and political positions to seek and take advantage of local socio-economic development opportunities.

Chairman of Lao Cai Provincial People's Committee received and worked with the Delegation of the Council of Nouvelle - Aquitaine (France)

Secondly, foreign relations have made many practical contributions - taking advantage of external resources for socio-economic development - at the same time contributing to making Lao Cai province become an attractive destination for foreign investors. In recent years, Lao Cai has focused on promoting cooperation with a number of foreign localities in an active and harmonious direction, such as cooperation with the province of Brest (Republic of Belarus), cooperation with the Nouvelle Aquitaine region and Cergy City (French Republic). Cooperation helps strengthen the province's position with international friends, promotes the local image as a potential destination and signals a safe and attractive investment environment. In addition, Lao Cai also maintains and enhances cooperation with major financial institutions such as the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), the French Development Agency (AFD), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). Strengthened cooperation with embassies of countries in Vietnam acts as a bridge to promote economic cooperation and in other fields.

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Dang Xuan Phong received the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel Nadav Eshcar

Through cooperative programs, Lao Cai province has gradually built up a strategy on economic relations with regions, territories, financial institutions and foreign partners to ensure a stable social environment and economic interests, taking full advantage of investment resources for local development. From 2013 to the end of 2019, 12 international financial organizations and institutions committed to sponsor ODA capital for Lao Cai province to ensure the implementation of 27 projects with a total investment of VND 10,388 billion. Particularly in 2020, there are 14 ODA programs and projects assigned capital to deploy. The total disbursement source as planned is 1,283 billion VND, in which the foreign capital plan is 1,015 billion VND and domestic reciprocal capital is 268 billion VND.

The use of ODA capital and disbursement of investment attraction projects have made important contributions to the province's economic growth and development, helping to solve many social problems such as employment, health, and education, and to contribute to sustainable hunger eradication and poverty reduction. Thus, it can be said that foreign relations are both the driving force and an important bridge for Lao Cai province to access and make use of external resources for socio-economic development.

Thirdly, the strengthening of foreign affairs has created a favorable, peaceful and potential international environment to promote the development of other branches and fields of the province. Over time, with the implementation and good application of the Party, State and local foreign policies and guidelines, Lao Cai province has constantly built and developed friendly and good relations with other foreign localities and international organizations. Through these cooperative relationships, the image of a dynamic province with many impressive tourist destinations and a safe and potential investment environment has been widely promoted by Lao Cai province to international friends. This is a great driving force to develop tourism, services, advanced technology and especially to develop tourism into a key economic sector of the province. In addition, the external relations also help open up many opportunities for Lao Cai province to exchange and cooperate with foreign countries in the fields of education, training, building high-quality labor, and promoting and preserving the cultural identities of ethnic groups sustainably.

In fact, the positive and effective foreign relations in recent years have extremely important implications for the socio-economic development of Lao Cai province in particular and of the country in general. However, in the context of increasingly deepening international integration, along with complex and volatile world and regional siutations, Lao Cai province always emphasizes foreign affairs and continues to determine building and maintaining effective and sustainable external relations as an important goal and task in the socio-economic development process in the province. Accordingly, the development orientation of foreign relations of Lao Cai province in the future are determined as being:

First, building comprehensive foreign relations, closely linking the three diplomatic pillars, namely politics - economy - culture, to strive to deepen, stabilize and sustain the cooperation.

Second, take advantage of the geographical location of the "gateway" to continue to proactively approach selectively, and build and promote friendly cooperative relationships with foreign localities, regional and international organizations, economic and technological centers of the world, thereby contributing to linking local production and economic exchange with international production and exchange, and linking domestic markets with foreign markets in order to serve  trade development.

Third, promote in-depth international cooperation to create and take advantage of opportunities to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assistance (ODA), technology transfer and experience in building and managing a modern economy for socio-economic development in the province.

Fourth, continue to build a safe investment environment, strenthening  foreign relations to promote the image of the locality, as a premise for the development of potential economic sectors, contributing to enhancing the position of Lao Cai province in the international arena.

Promoting the recent achievements in foreign relations, Lao Cai province is confident that it will achieve increasing success, continuing to contribute to promoting the province's future socio-economic development.