Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung held talks on July 4 in Tokyo with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe who pledged that Japan will support Vietnam in infrastructure building towards high quality infrastructure development.

PM Nguyen Tan Dung stated that Vietnam treasures partnership with Japan and always favours Japan’s role and positive contributions to peace, stability, cooperation and progress in the region and the world.

Both sides agreed to maintain visits, meetings and dialogues at all levels, especially high level, to further deepen political trust. In this spirit, PM Abe welcomed a visit to Japan by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. He himself accepted the invitation to visit Vietnam again at an early date.

Regarding economic cooperation, the two PMs vowed to coordinate closely in effectively realising important joint projects, while completing the building of a middle and long-term vision on agricultural affiliation.

PM Abe committed to maintain high ODA provision for Vietnam’s sustainable growth, including assistance for the construction of the Cho Ray 2 Hospital, also known as the Vietnam-Japan Friendship Hospital.

PM Nguyen Tan Dung highly appreciates PM Abe’s support of Vietnam ’s proposal on Japan ’s phase-one ODA commitment worth 300 billion JPY (roughly 3 billion USD) for Vietnam ’s projects in the fiscal year of 2015.

The Japanese PM said he will consider Vietnam’s request on maintaining and increasing support scale for programmes on climate change response and economic governance and competitiveness enhancement. Japan will also continue its assistance for Vietnam in implementing the strategy on industrialisation within the Vietnam-Japan cooperation framework until 2020 with a vision to 2030, he said.

Meanwhile, PM Nguyen Tan Dung asked the Japanese Government continue helping Vietnam in human resources development, while encouraging Japanese firms to engage in the Vietnam-Japan University project and expanding the reception of Vietnamese nurses.

He added that Vietnam always welcomes and backs Japanese enterprises to invest in the “smart urban area” project in the north of Hanoi.

Both sides agreed to create all favourable conditions for businesses of both countries to increase trade relations, boosting foreign direct investment and tourism collaboration.

They concurred to strengthen collaboration in investment, agriculture and human resources development, while evaluating the possibility to cooperate within the 110 billion USD credit package announced by PM Abe in May this year for high-quality infrastructure growth in Asia.

The two PMs also discussed a number of regional and global issues of mutual concern, pledging to promote coordination at regional and international forums.

The Vietnamese Government leader said Vietnam supports Japan’s “positive pacifism” for the sake of peace, security, stability, cooperation and progress in the region and the world in line with the United Nations’ Charter as well as international law while respecting other State’s independence and sovereignty and pursuing equal, mutually beneficial cooperation.

The two PM shared the deep concern of the international community as well as leaders at the Mekong-Japan Summit over recent developments in the East Sea, especially the large-scale construction of islands.

They agreed on the importance of maintaining peace, security, safety and freedom of maritime and aviation and called on all involved parties to avoid actions complicating and expanding disputes in the East Sea . They also urged the strict observance of international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as well as the Declaration on the Conducts of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), while speeding up the building of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

PM Abe emphasised his concern about the unilateral changing of status quo on large scale as well as the construction of military bases in the region, adding that Japan commits to engaging in maintaining maritime and aviation order.

At the same time, the two leaders also announced the basic conclusion of bilateral negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, while pledging to work with other member countries to finish talks for the deal.

PM Nguyen Tan Dung lauded Japan’s contributions to the success of the 7th Mekong-Japan Summit with the approval of the “Tokyo Strategy 215.”

Following their talks, the two PMs witnessed the signing of a number of agreements, including a 66 billion JPY deal on providing loans for five projects in the 2014 fiscal year, and a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on the formation of a Joint Committee on collaboration in industry, trade and energy.

On the evening of July 4, PM Nguyen Tan Dung and the Vietnamese delegation left Tokyo, concluding their Japan visit.-VNA