In his opening speech, Vice Chairman of the Da Nang municipal People’s Committee Le Trung Chinh said that Da Nang has set up cooperative ties with Japanese partners and cities like Yokohama, Nagasaki, and Kisarazu. Chinh said that Japan is the biggest foreign investor in Da Nang, accounting for 25 percent of the total foreign direct investment (FDI) 177 projects worth over US$ 800 million in the city. The East Asian country is the biggest software export market of Da Nang’s IT firms, accounting for more than 36 percent of their total exports.

Takeo Nakajima, Chief Representative of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in Hanoi, said that about 70 percent of the Japanese firms operating in Vietnam announced that they are planning to expand business in Asia and ASEAN, especially in Vietnam. In 2018, 248 Japanese enterprises invested in the IT sector in Vietnam, making up 8 percent of the total amount of Japanese investment in the country. 

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An overview of the opening ceremony 

According to VINASA’s survey involving 60 Vietnamese businesses with joint ventures or partnerships with Japanese firms, big data, digital transformation, and Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) are big cooperation potentials for the two sides while three training contents, namely new technologies, Japanese language, and business culture draw much attention from businesses of the two sides.

During the event, Vietnamese businesses with much experience in doing business with Japanese partners shared information and their practical experiences in the cooperation in new technologies, and the training of IT personnel with Japanese partners.

At the event, there were also B-to-B meetings and an exhibition on products and solutions of Vietnamese and Japanese businesses.

On this occasion, the Vietnam-Japan IT Cooperation Committee and the IT Innovation and Strategy Center of Okinawa prefecture of Japan signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation. The agreement was in the effort to expand cooperation between Vietnamese and Japanese firms in IT, especially in the fourth industrial revolution.

Translated by Song Anh