Japanese Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio will pay an official visit to Vietnam and co-chair the 6 th meeting of the Vietnam-Japan Cooperation Committee (VJCC) from July 31 to August 2.

The visit is hoped to further foster the two nations’ intensive and extensive strategic partnership.

The Vietnam-Japan relationship has developed fruitfully, especially since the VJCC’s 5 th meeting last year. The two countries upgraded their relation to an extensive strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia during President Truong Tan Sang’s visit to Japan in March this year.

Economic cooperation is the brightest point in bilateral relations. Japan is one of Vietnam ’s leading partners and the first G7 country recognising Vietnam ’s market economy status (in 2011).

Japan is the fourth largest trade partner of Vietnam , with two-way trade reaching over 24 billion USD in 2013 and nearly 10.7 billion USD in the first five months of this year.

Last year, Japan topped the list of 54 countries and territories investing in Vietnam with a total newly registered and additional capital of almost 5.8 billion USD. By May 20 this year, the country had 2,288 valid projects worth 35.6 billion USD in Vietnam .

Japan is now the largest provider of official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam , with a total amount of 21 billion USD during the 1992-2013 period.

In addition, bilateral relations in other fields such as sci-technology, labour, tourism, culture, education and local cooperation have also seen strong developments.-VNA