President Luong Cuong, on behalf of the State and people of Vietnam, welcomed PM Ishiba's first visit to Vietnam as head of the Japanese Government. He expressed his delight at witnessing the substantive, comprehensive, and effective development of the bilateral relationship in all areas and achieving many new development steps and outstanding achievements after nearly two years of upgrading the relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia and the World.
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State President Luong Cuong (right) and Japanese PM Ishiba Shigeru at their meeting in Hanoi on Monday. |
The President affirmed that Vietnam attaches importance to the relationship with Japan, supports Japan in promoting an increasingly active role, and jointly contributes to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world. He believed that this visit by PM Ishiba will open a new stage of development in the bilateral relationship in a closer and more effective direction, meeting the interests of the people of the two countries, contributing to cooperation and development in the region.
PM Ishiba thanked President Luong Cuong for his warm welcome and was delighted to meet the President again since the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Week in Peru in November 2024 and to visit Vietnam again after 35 years at a time when Vietnam is organizing activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the South and national reunification and witnessing great changes in Vietnam.
The PM affirmed that Japan will continue to accompany and support Vietnam in building an independent and self-reliant economy, realizing the goals of becoming a developing country with modern industry and upper-middle income by 2030 and a developed country with high income by 2045.
Emphasizing the importance of defense and security cooperation, PM Ishiba welcomed the two sides' recent announcement of the establishment of the 2+2 dialogue mechanism at the deputy foreign and defense minister level and expressed his wish that the two countries would further strengthen defense and security cooperation.
President Luong Cuong suggested the two sides effectively implement the signed cooperation agreements, while promoting and exchanging new cooperation contents.
He said that there is still much room for stronger economic cooperation between the two countries, and suggested both sides deepen economic, trade and investment partnership, promote science and technology cooperation, and implement specific cooperation projects in new areas such as digital transformation, green transition, high-quality human resource training, semiconductors, and AI. The State leader also proposed Japan support Vietnam in improving its capacity to respond to climate change, and promote high-tech agricultural cooperation.
Highly appreciating the positive contribution of the 630,000 Vietnamese community to Japan, PM Ishiba affirmed that the Japanese Government will continue to support and create favorable conditions for Vietnamese people to live, study and work in Japan; and hoped to further promote people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries.
Discussing regional and global issues, the two sides agreed to strengthen coordination, share positions, cooperate and support each other on regional and international issues of mutual concern and in multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations, APEC, ASEAN, and Mekong, contributing to strengthening the international system of equality and fairness based on international law and the United Nations Charter.
President Luong Cuong expressed his gratitude to Japan for supporting ASEAN's stance on resolving disputes by peaceful measures on the basis of international law, especially the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982.
On this occasion, the State President respectfully invited the Japanese Emperor and Empress to visit Vietnam soon.
Source: VNA