>>Prime Minister attends G7 Summit in Japan
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe discussed major orientations and specific measures to develop the Vietnam-Japan extensive strategic partnership in a comprehensive, pragmatic and more effective manner in the time ahead during talks in Tokyo on May 28.
The talks followed a welcome ceremony for the Vietnamese Prime Minister.
They expressed their delight at the strong and substantive developments in bilateral cooperation over the past years, especially in the economy, agriculture and exchanges between localities.
PM Phuc affirmed Vietnam’s consistent policy of regarding Japan as a leading and long-term partner.
For his part, PM Shinzo Abe said Japan attached importance to the relationship with Vietnam and wished to continue closely cooperating with the country in order to push forward the bilateral ties in a more comprehensive fashion.
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| Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc talks with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Tokyo__Photo: VNA |
The two PMs agreed to boost political trust by maintaining regular exchanges of high-ranking delegations and meetings on the sideline of international forums, and by enhancing the efficiency of bilateral dialogue mechanisms.
They said they would reinforce defense and security cooperation, particularly in dealing with the aftermath of war and UN peacekeeping missions.
Both sides also agreed to seek specific measures to promote connectivity between the two economies in terms of economic strategies, production resources and human resources via investment and trade cooperation and official development assistance (ODA).
PM Shinzo Abe stated that Japan would continue offering ODA for Vietnam’s infrastructure development and climate change response.
He said Japan would work closely with Vietnam in implementing an initiative on boosting Japan-Mekong links and a USD 110-billion credit plan to develop high-quality infrastructure in Asia.
PM Phuc called for Japan’s support for Vietnam accessing preferential loans from international financial organizations, including those from the World Bank’s International Development Association after 2017.
The two sides agreed to boost Japan’s investment in Vietnam via the implementation of Phase VI of the Vietnam-Japan Joint Initiative in 2016. They pledged close cooperation in the implementation of Vietnam’s Industrialization Strategy within the framework of the Vietnam-Japan cooperation until 2020 with a vision to 2030, and acceleration of big projects on infrastructure, including the North-South Highway and the Ninh Thuan 2 Nuclear Power Plant.
The two sides discussed measures to promote the cooperation in trade and hi-tech agriculture, and create conditions for each other’s agricultural products to enter the other’s market.
The two sides also reached agreement on enhancing cooperation in health, the training of human resources and Japan’s reception of Vietnamese trainees, while continuing to implement the Vietnam-Japan University project as well as bolstering tourism and people-to-people exchanges.
Concerning climate change, PM Shinzo Abe announced non-refundable aid worth 300 million JPY (USD 2.5 million) to assist Vietnam in dealing with drought and salt water intrusion. He affirmed Japan would work with Vietnam to seek medium and long term solutions to those problems, adding that Japan is ready to provide official development assistance capital to build dams and reservoirs based on specific requests from Vietnam. In the immediate future, Japan would send JICA’s experts to conduct surveys under the Water Management Project in Ben Tre Province.
Discussing international and regional issues of common concern, PM Shinzo Abe affirmed that Japan would coordinate with Vietnam in the preparation for APEC Year in 2017.
After the talks, the two PMs witnessed the exchange of five cooperation documents, of which four are ODA loans worth a total of 166 billion JPY (USD 1.5 billion) for the urban railway No. 1 in Ho Chi Minh City, the Thai Binh thermoelectricity plant, and the second phase of Ho Chi Minh City’s water environment improvement work. The fifth document is a stock purchase agreement between Vietnam Airlines and Japan’s ANA Holdings Inc.- (VNS/VLLF)
