President Vo Van Thuong’s Japan official visit: An important highlight in a half century
WVR - In an interview with the press before the visit to Japan by President Vo Van Thuong and Spouse, Standing Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu emphasized that this is an important highlight event on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of establishing foreign relation.
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| Standing Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu. (Photo: Nguyen Hong) |
Could you please inform us about the important significance of the official visit of President Vo Van Thuong and Spouse to Japan?
This is the first official visit to Japan by President Vo Van Thuong, taking place on the occasion of celebrating the 50th anniversary of establishing Vietnam-Japan diplomatic relation (September 21, 1973 - 2023).
During this trip, President Thuong is scheduled to meet the Emperor and Empress of Japan, hold talks with Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, make a policy statement at the Japanese National Diet, and meet and discuss with National Diet leaders, representatives of political, economic, scientific and cultural associations, and visit Fukuoka prefecture.
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 President Vo Van Thuong sets off for official visit to Japan |
This highlight visit on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations has three main meanings:
Firstly, the visit will help lift the bilateral ties to a new height through promoting more substantive and effective cooperation in all fields, from politics, economics, trade, investment, defense-security to local cooperation, people exchange, as well as expanding into new cooperation aspects for common interest.
Secondly, the visit will contribute to consolidating political trust and enhancing close exchanges between high-ranking leaders of the two countries. With this visit, all four top leaders of Vietnam have discussed and met with Japanese leaders in 2023. Since the beginning of the year, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong had a phone call (March 2023), Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh held talks with Prime Minister Kishida Fumio (May 2023), and National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue held talks with President of the Japanese Senate Otsuji Hidehisa (September 2023).
Thirdly, in the context of rapidly and complicated developments in the international and regional situation, the visit affirms that in its foreign policy, Vietnam continues to take Japan as a top and long-term partner, and wishes to work with the country to promote common interests for the development of each country as well as for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region.
With the above important meaning, I believe that the official visit to Japan by President Vo Van Thuong and his spouse will be a great success, contributing to promoting multifaceted cooperation between Vietnam and Japan to develop strongly, substantially and comprehensively in all fields in the coming time.
In the 50 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, Vietnam-Japan relations have gained a lot of achievements. In your oppinion, will this visit create a new chapter in the relation between the two countries?
Obviously, cooperation between Vietnam and Japan is in the best stage in history, with great achievements gained in all fields.
The two countries always consider each other as reliable partners, closely linked in many fields of politics, security - defense, economics, culture, education - training, tourism, human resource cooperation, in which economic cooperation is a bright spot with many outstanding achievements.
Japan is currently the largest ODA provider for Vietnam with about 30 billion USD, the second biggest labour cooperation partner, the third largest tourism and investment partner, and the fourth largest trade partner of the Southeast Asian nation. The two countries have also promoted collaboration in new fields such as innovation, science and technology, digital transformation, green transformation, energy, and climate change response.
Local cooperation, cultural exchange, and people-to-people exchange have progressed positively. At international forums such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and the United Nations, two countries always cooperate closely, support each other, and join hands to solve international and regional issues of common concern.
Based on such close and extensive cooperation, I hope that President Thuong’s visit will contribute to tightening the bilateral friendship, deepening political trust and increasing contacts and exchanges between high-ranking leaders of the two countries, and leaders of Vietnamese departments, ministries, branches and localities and Japanese partners;
Continuing to build economic cooperation as the main pillar of the two countries' relationship through strengthening cooperation in investment, ODA, trade, labor, human resource training, thereby helping Vietnam implement three strategic breakthroughs: industrialization, modernization, building an independent, self-reliant economy with comprehensive and extensive international integration.
Vietnam hopes that the two countries will effectively implement a new-generation ODA programme; continue to promote cooperation in attracting Japanese ODA in the fields of infrastructure, climate change response, and human resources training; promote investment cooperation; maintain sustainable growth momentum of bilateral trade turnover; coordinate in improving the efficiency of economic agreements/mechanisms that the two parties are members such as WTO, APEC, CPTPP, RCEP, AJCEP, etc; and strengthen labour collaboration and human resources training, especially high-quality human resources.
Promoting cooperation in new fields such as information technology, innovation, green transformation, digital transformation, climate change response.
Fostering and deepen local cooperation, tourism, cultural exchange, people-to-people exchange, thereby enhancing mutural undertanding and affection of Vietnamese and Japanese, building solid foundation to effectively implement cooperation of all fields between the two countries.
Strengthening close coordination at multilateral forums, international and regional organizations such as the United Nations, APEC, ASEAN, Mekong.
Enhancing close coordination at multilateral forums, international and regional organizations such as the United Nations, APEC, ASEAN, Mekong.
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