Vietnamese State leader’s visit to deepen strategic partnership with Japan

President Vo Van Thuong, his spouse and a high-ranking delegation of Vietnam left Hanoi on November 26 for a four-day official visit to Japan at the invitation of the Japanese State.

This is the visit to Japan by President Vo Van Thuong in his new position in the context of Vietnam-Japan relations developing in an effective and substantial manner after exactly 50 years of their diplomatic relations (1973-2023), and after 9 years since they upgraded their ties to an extensive strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia.

Notably, the extensive strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia between Vietnam and Japan is seeing  positive development, with strong comprehensive cooperation based on high political across multiple areas, from economics, trade, investment, defence-security, culture-education, agriculture, health, labor,  to people-to-people exchange, and local cooperation.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations this year, the two countries have launched nearly 500 practical and meaningful activities as a contribution to strengthening and deepening friendship and mutual understanding between the two countries' people.

In recent times, delegation exchange activities and contacts at all levels have been maintained and intensified.

Japan continues to be Vietnam's most important economic partner, the largest ODA provider, the second largest partner in labor cooperation, the third in investment and tourism, and the fourth in trade exchange.

Over the past 9 months of 2023, Vietnam's import-export turnover with Japan reached nearly US$33 billion, including roughly US$17 billion from Vietnamese exports to the East Asian nation.

As of September 20 this year, Japanese investment in Vietnam stood at over US$71 billion with nearly 5,200 valid projects, ranking 3rd among 143 countries and territories investing in the Southeast Asian nation.

Japan is currently going ahead with new investment projects in Vietnam.

By the end of fiscal year 2020, Japan's ODA funding to Vietnam amounted to US$27.5 billion, accounting for more than 26% of the Government's total signed foreign loan capital.

Defence and security cooperation is increasingly developing in substantial fashion, while cooperation between localities of the two countries is constantly expanding with nearly 100 pairs of localities establishing friendly and cooperative relations.

Vietnam is the first country in the world to officially introduce Japanese into secondary school teaching since 2003, and primary school since 2019.

Japan is one of the largest aid providers for Vietnam's education and training sector through ODA funding programs.

The East Asian nation has supported the upgrading of 4 Vietnamese universities to high quality universities and is cooperating to build the Vietnam - Japan University in order to train high-quality human resources for Vietnam in the field of science and technology, management and services.

There are currently over 500,000 Vietnamese people living in Japan and nearly 23,000 Japanese people living in Vietnam.

Based on the good relationship, the two sides have coordinated closely and effectively and offered mutual support at multilateral forums and in international and regional issues of shared concern.

Japan is the first G7 country to welcome the visit by the Vietnamese General Secretary in 1995, the first G7 country to establish a strategic partnership with Vietnam in 2009, the first G7 country to recognize Vietnam's market economy in 2011, and the first G7 country that invited Vietnam to attend the expanded G7 Summit held in May 2016.

With the special context of the visit, on the basis of the major achievements in cooperation between the two countries, the official visit to Japan by President Vo Van Thuong will strongly promote relations between the two countries, bringing their strategic partnership to a new, more substantive and effective period.