Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung chaired a discussion with representatives from 15 major Japanese groups in Tokyo on July 3, reiterating the Vietnamese Government’s commitment to providing optimal conditions for foreign direct investments, including those from Japan.

This was the second time the Vietnamese leader attended a discussion with leading Japanese enterprises including Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Canon, Sumitomo, Hitachi, and Bridgestone this time around. The first function took place in late 2013 with executives from 11 Japanese firms.

PM Nguyen Tan Dung, who is in Japan to attend the 7th Mekong-Japan Summit, said Vietnam is entering a new stage of development with a more stable macro-economy, faster growth and better controlled inflation. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 6.28 percent in the first six months of 2015 and could expand by 6.5 percent this year – the fastest pace since 2011.

Vietnam is focusing on completing market mechanisms and developing human resources and infrastructure. It is also joining efforts with other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to build an ASEAN Economic Community with a population of 625 million and a GDP of 2.5 trillion USD by the end of this year.

He continued to say that Vietnam is working with partner countries, including the US and Japan, to expeditiously conclude negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement to sign the pact as soon as possible. Its participation in free trade agreements is opening more commercial opportunities with 55 countries and partners - including 15 members of the G20.

The leader also highlighted the sound development of the strategic partnership between his country and Japan, who has continually been the top donor of official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam over the past two decades.

Japan is currently Vietnam’s third largest trade partner with trade expected to near 30 billion USD this year and its biggest investor with 38 billion USD to be poured into Vietnam in 2015.

He added that Vietnam is undertaking measures to remove existing business obstacles such as reforming administrative procedures relating to taxes, customs, construction and land.

It is striving to bring its business environment criteria on par with the ASEAN-4 group (Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) in 2016. A number of important laws have been amended and enforced such as the laws on investment, enterprises, housing and real estate business, he said, adding that the Government has also issued a decree on public-private partnership and is designing legal documents to assist small- and medium-sized enterprises and support industries.

Such moves illustrate Vietnam’s strong commitment to aligning its investment and business climate with global criteria and free trade agreement terms, PM Nguyen Tan Dung noted.

At the discussion, the PM and Vietnamese ministers exchanged opinions and responded to questions and proposals raised by Japanese entrepreneurs, especially on the automobile industry, and energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals and ODA projects.

The Japanese side valued the Vietnamese Government’s efforts to improve its business environment and voiced their interest in extending their operations in Vietnam.

Also on July 3, PM Nguyen Tan Dung met with executives from Nikkei, Mitsui Sumitomo, and Mitsubishi.-VNA