Addressing the forum PM Chinh held that the two countries’ political trust is now at a very high level. Japan is Vietnam's leading economic partner, ranking second in labour cooperation, third in investment and tourism cooperation, and fourth in trade cooperation. The two economies have complemented each other, contributing to mutual development.
He noted that with over 5,200 projects and more than 71.5 billion USD in registered capital, Japanese investors are present in almost all regions of Vietnam. They are participating in several strategic projects in key areas such as manufacturing, processing industries, electronics components, research and development, finance, biotechnology, quantum technology, AI, and modern healthcare.
Bilateral trade exceeded 40 billion USD in the first 11 months of 2023, with Vietnam importing nearly 20 billion USD worth of goods from Japan. Among its foreign partners, Japan has signed the largest number of bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with Vietnam. Meanwhile, there are over 500,000 Vietnamese living, studying, and working in Japan, and more than 22,000 Japanese citizens are living, studying and working in Vietnam.
The Government leader stressed that upgrading the Vietnam-Japan relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia and the World has laid an important political foundation to continue expanding cooperation in new areas where both sides have strengths.
He told the forum that Vietnam needs Japan’s further collaboration and support in the industrialisation and modernisation process, financial assistance with preferential interest rates, transfer of advanced technologies, and suggestions for building and improving its institutions, mechanisms, and policies.
PM Chinh proposed Japan assist Vietnam in training high-quality human resources and emphasised the necessity to step up the two sides’ locality-to-locality cooperation, people-to-people exchanges, and cultural collaboration.
He called on Japanese enterprises to continue investing in Vietnam to achieve increasingly better results, as the successes of the investors are also the successes of Vietnam.
