Da Nang (VNA) – Vietnam’s central DaNang city and Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture plan to upgrade the current charterflight service to a regular air route between the two cities to boost theirinvestment, tourism and trade, according to a Japanese official.
Member of Hokkaido Prefectural council, ChibaHidemori called for the direct flight in a recent meeting with Da Nang city’sleadership.
Hidemori, chairman of the Vietnam-Japan FriendshipAssociation of Hokkaido, said cultural and trade exchanges and investment havebeen enhanced between the two sides since 2013, and the direct chartered flightresulted from positive co-operation between the two localities.
Vice chairman of the city’s People’s Committee,Ho Ky Minh said Da Nang had inked memorandums of understanding on investmentand co-operation with Yokohama, Kawasaki and Sakai, and built relationshipswith 15 other cities in Japan.
Minh asked Hokkaido to support Da Nang buildingup seafood chains with funding from the Japan International Co-operation Agency(JICA) of Kushiro city (a city on Hokkaido Island) in the coming years.
Da Nang is home to 143 Japanese projects withtotal investment of 500 million USD. Foreign direct investment projects fromJapan create 40,000 jobs for local and neighbouring provinces in centralVietnam.
Japanese tourists were Da Nang’s second largesttourist segment last year, with more than 400,000 – 10 times as many as in 2013(40,000).
The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines andbudget Jetstar Pacific Airlines run direct flights from Da Nang to Narita andOsaka, respectively. - VNA
