Vietnam ’s top financial official has called on Japan to consider assistance to Vietnam under the form of public-private partnerships (PPP) to help the country modernise its financial sector.

Finance Minister Vuong Dinh Hue made the statement at a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Jun Azumi in Tokyo on Oct. 31 within the framework of the visit to Japan by a high-ranking government delegation led by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Hue briefed his host of Vietnam ’s socio-economic situation over the past time, the country’s macro-economic policy and development orientations in the time to come.

He highly valued Japan ’s cooperation and support for Vietnam , saying Japan is Vietnam ’s leading provider of official development assistance (ODA).

The Japanese-aided projects have significantly contributed to Vietnam ’s socio-economic development, Hue said.

The Vietnamese minister proposed the Japanese Finance Ministry increase loans for Vietnam under the tenth Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC10) programme from 3.5 billion JPY to 10 billion JPY in the second phase of the 2011 fiscal year.

He also called on Japan to provide more assistance to the Support Programme to Respond to Climate Change (SP-RCC) in the 2012 fiscal year.

For his part, Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi noted with pleasure the efficiency of Japan ’s ODA in Vietnam and pledged that Japan will increase the capital as well as new types of investment at possible conditions.

Both host and guest agreed to tighten the relations between the two ministries to contribute to the strategic partnership between the two countries./.