Vietnamese and Japanese PMs hold high-level talks

This is the first Vietnam-Japan high-level talks that took place in Hiroshima, the hometown of Prime Minister Kishida, and the fifth meeting between Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Prime Minister Kishida in more than a year.

The Vietnamese Government chief congratulated PM Kishida and the host country, Japan on successfully organizing the G7 and G7 expanded summits, and highly appreciated Japan's coordinating role to reach a consensus in solving global challenges such as food security, and emission reduction.

Kishida expressed his pleasure to meet with PM Pham Minh Chinh again and hailed the active and effective participation and contributions of the Vietnamese delegation to the success of the G7 Summit, while affirming that Vietnam has a leading position in the implementation of Japan's foreign policy in the region.

The two leaders expressed their satisfaction over the strong, comprehensive and substantive development of bilateral relations over the past time and agreed on major orientations and specific measures to promote the extensive strategic partnership between Vietnam and Japan for peace and prosperity in Asia to new heights.

The two PMs consented to strengthen political trust by strengthening high-level visits and meetings in 2023 - the year marking the 50th anniversary of both nations' diplomatic ties.

PM Chinh conveyed the invitation to visit Vietnam by Vietnamese Party and State leaders to the Emperor and Empress of Japan.

The two sides agreed to step up defence-security cooperation in the settlement of post-war consequences, human resource training, defence technology transfer, and cyber security.

They will intensify the exchange of contents regarding Japanese  support for Vietnam in boosting industrialization and modernization and building an independent and self-reliant economy, while underlining the need to strengthen linkages between the two economies through boosting investment and trade cooperation.

The two leaders highly appreciated the completion of procedures for capital commitment of the new generation official development assistance (ODA) programme for post-pandemic economic recovery worth 50 billion JPY.

They will assign ministries and sectors to discuss Japan's ability to provide new generation ODA with high incentives, simple and flexible procedures for large-scale strategic infrastructure development projects in Vietnam, such as North-South high-speed railway, urban railway construction, climate change response, digital transformation, green transformation and health care.

They affirmed that they will direct both nations' relevant agencies to accelerate the progress of a number of ODA cooperation projects such as Cho Ray Hospital 2, the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien urban railway No.1.

Regarding the Nghi Son Oil Refinery project, PM Pham Minh Chinh suggested businesses of the two countries actively exchange in the spirit of harmonizing benefits, sharing risks, and removing difficulties of the project.

The Vietnamese cabinet leader proposed the two sides work together to promote a new wave of Japanese investment in Vietnam in the fields of high-tech industry, energy conversion, production capacity improvement and competitiveness for Vietnam to participate more deeply and widely in the supply chain of Japanese enterprises and the global supply chain.

He asked Japan to encourage strategic investors in the field of clean energy and renewable energy in Vietnam, support the Southeast Asian nation to increase the value chain of agricultural products through technology transfer, capacity building in terms of distribution and processing, promote procedures for the early announcement of Japanese grapes entering Vietnam and Vietnamese green-skinned pomelos entering the Japanese market.

Chinh also suggested the Japanese Government create favorable conditions and simplify visa procedures for Vietnam towards waving entry visas for Vietnamese citizens so as to step up tourism cooperation between the two countries, and soon deploy the form of study tourism in the time ahead.

This is addition to offering the best possible conditions for the community of nearly 500,000 Vietnamese people to live, study and work conveniently in Japan which serves as a bridge for cooperation between the two countries.

The two sides affirmed coordinating their stance on issues of mutual concern at multilateral and regional forums such as ASEAN, the United Nations, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

PM Kishida invited his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Minh Chinh to visit Japan again and attend the ASEAN-Japan Summit slated for December 2023.

Regarding the East Sea issue, the two leaders emphasized the importance of ensuring security and safety of navigation and aviation, resolving all disputes and disagreements by peaceful means on the basis of international law, especially the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982, and fully implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), towards completing an effective and substantive Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

Prior to their talks, Chinh and Kishida Fumio witnessed the exchange of signed documents of three ODA cooperation projects with a total value of 61 billion JPY (about US$500 million), including a new-generation ODA support programme for post-pandemic socio-economic recovery and development, a public transport infrastructure project in Binh Duong province, and an agricultural development infrastructure project in Lam Dong province.

This is the final activity of PM Pham Minh Chinh within the framework of the expanded G7 Summit  and his working visit to Japan.

In the evening of the same day, Chinh and his entourage left Japan for the home country, successfully concluding their three-day business trip to the East Asian nation.