Participants at the meeting (Photo: VNA) Jakarta (VNA) – The 14th meeting of the ASEAN-Japan Joint Cooperation Committee (AJJCC) took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, on March 11 under the co-chair of Ambassador Tran Duc Binh, head of the Vietnamese Permanent Mission to ASEAN, and Japanese Ambassador to ASEAN Chiba Akira.
ASEAN member nations appreciated Japan's effective cooperation and support for the bloc for many years through the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF) with a total grant of nearly 85 million USD by December 31, 2019.
The two sides highly evaluated positive results the two sides achieved in political-security, economic and socio-cultural cooperation.
They affirmed their commitment to further strengthen the ASEAN-Japan Strategic Partnership and effectively implement joint statements signed by their high-ranking leaders.
Accordingly, ASEAN and Japan will prioritise expanding cooperation on infrastructure development through implementing the ASEAN-Japan Transport Partnership (AJTP), negotiating the ASEAN-Japan Air Services Agreement and creating connectivity between implementing Japan’s Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure” initiative and the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 (MPAC 2025).
The two sides will also focus resources on comprehensively implementing the remaining action lines of the 2017 Revised Implementation Plan of the Vision Statement on ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation, and the ASEAN-Japan 10-Year Strategic Economic Cooperation Roadmap, especially activities and projects to support the bloc to successfully implement its goals of building the ASEAN Community, narrowing the development gap, cooperating in human resource development, facilitating the operation of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, building smart city, developing digital economy and energy, managing natural disasters and adapting to climate change.
They emphasised the need to complete procedures to soon validate the first protocol amending the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, towards further expanding investment, trade and service cooperation between the two sides, as well as quickening the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in 2020.
Japan highly valued and supported Vietnam's priorities in the ASEAN presidency for 2020, and stressed the implementation of the three orientations for developing the ASEAN-Japan Strategic Partnership and Cooperation on human development, institutional building and intellectual accumulation.
The Japanese Government decided to provide an additional 9.5 million USD for the JAIF in 2020, and 5.11 million USD for the Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths (JENESYS) programme in 2020; as well as mobilise 3 billion USD from the public and private sector in 2020-2021, including 1.2 billion USD for loans and investment abroad for ASEAN through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Japan is now ASEAN's fourth largest trade partner with two-way trade in 2018 hitting 231.7 billion USD. With its 21-billion-USD investment in ASEAN in 2018, Japan is the third biggest foreign direct investor of the group.
The Japan-ASEAN Technical Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed in May 2019 was carried out through JICA in the 2019-2020 fiscal year with a training course on strengthening cyber security capacity, and three others scheduled for 2020 on developing regional sustainable logistics systems, strategic seaport management and marine waste treatment.
The ASEAN-Japan sports cooperation has been strengthened through the ASEAN-Japan Actions on Sports in 2019-2020. Japan has also actively cooperated with and supported ASEAN to implement the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) work programme 2016-2020; and financed programmes of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre)./.
VNA
