Vietnam, Japan forge people-to-people diplomacy

Hanoi (VNA) – Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung on December 3 hosted a reception for Vice President of the Japanese International Friendship Exchange Council (FEC) Onoi Yoshiki.

The Deputy PM said the Vietnam-Japan extensive strategic partnership is developing fruitfully on the basis of the consolidated political trust, and the two countries have become leading partners in economy, trade and investment.

Japan has been Vietnam’s largest official development assistance (ODA) supplier with total capital amounting to about 27 billion USD. The East Asian economic power is also the fourth biggest trade partner of Vietnam with two-way trade hitting around 38 billion USD last year.

Japan’s investment projects have significantly contributed to socio-economic development and job generation in Vietnam, Dung said, adding that Japan ranks second among countries and territories investing in the Southeast Asian nation, with more than 4,300 projects valued at nearly 60 billion USD.

Vietnam hopes Japanese investors will expand their investment and cooperate with local enterprises in such sectors as farming machinery, agro-fishery processing, electronics, shipbuilding, auto and spare parts, environmental industry, energy saving, infrastructure, energy, support industry and high-tech, Dung stressed.

The official lauded contributions of Yoshiki and other FEC members to promoting cooperation and friendship between Vietnam and Japan over the past years, including the organisation of many business delegations to Vietnam since 2011.

For his part, Onoi said he is impressed by Vietnam’s economic development over the past time, and pledged to make more efforts to contribute to the country’s development through people-to-people diplomacy.

The council will organise more trips for Japanese businesses to Vietnam to seek investment opportunities, support Vietnamese investors in Japan and hold people-to-people exchanges, he said./.