The Vietnamese Government attaches great importance to increasing ties between localities of Vietnam and Japan, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told the governor of Ibaraki, Masaru Hashimoto, in Tokyo. Phuc expressed his satisfaction at the growing collaboration between Vietnamese localities and Ibaraki, especially in the fields of agriculture and processing industry.He praised Ibaraki’s strengths in agriculture, science-technology, and education, and urged the prefecture to continue encouraging its businesses to invest in Vietnam, as well as share experience, transfer high technologies, and support Vietnam’s efforts to modernise and industrialise its agricultural sector.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc received governor of Ibaraki, Masaru Hashimoto
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The PM also proposed the Japanese prefecture receive more Vietnamese workers and train human resources while coordinating with Vietnamese localities to host activities in celebration of the 45th founding anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties and 50 years of establishment of Japan-Vietnam Friendship Association in Ibaraki in 2018.
Hashimoto said Ibaraki authorities and entrepreneurs want to step up multi-faceted investment cooperation with Vietnamese localities, and receive more high-quality workers to work in the prefecture. He urged the two sides to enhance collaboration on the ground of implementing effectively their cooperation plans.
The same day, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc received Tadashi Maeda, CEO/Exec Managing Director of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), and Tsuyoshi Yaguchi, Chairman of the Committee on Security under the Japanese House of Representatives.
The JBIC executive said the bank wants to further assist Vietnam with infrastructure development and implementation of financial services for development. Yaguchi hoped the two countries will push ahead with economic cooperation and increase the role of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to boost free trade. The PM pledged to create all favourable conditions for Japanese banking-finance organizations to make investment in Vietnam.
The trip is also expected to promote economic ties at the central and local level and reflect Vietnam’s active role in the region. From the reliable, stable and long-term partnership framework established in April 2002, the two nations upgraded their relations to the extensive strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia in March 2014.
Japan is Vietnam’s economic partner of top significance and the first G7 country to recognise Vietnam as a market economy. In 2016, two-way trade hit 29.7 billion USD. In the first four months of this year, the figure passed 10 billion USD, up 16 percent annually.
Japan is the largest supplier of official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam, accounting for around 30 percent of the total. Over the past years, the two countries have made breakthroughs in agricultural link with the signing of the Medium to Long-term Vision for Vietnam-Japan Agricultural Cooperation.
Japan continually provides ODA for Vietnam in climate change response, and has pledged to study mid- and long-term assistance to Vietnam in the regard. In the four months of this year, up to 261,571 Japanese tourists arrived in Vietnam, ranking third behind China and the Republic of Korea (RoK). Locality-to-locality cooperation has been strongly reinforced.
