Vientiane (VNA) – Vietnam considers Japan as a leading important, reliable, and long-term partner, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed while meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba in Vientiane, Laos, on October 11, on the sidelines of the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits.

This is the first meeting between the two PMs since Ishiba took office on October 1.

Congratulating Ishiba on his election as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and PM of Japan, Chinh affirmed that Vietnam supports Japan's positive contributions to peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the region and the world.

He emphasised the importance of enhancing economic cooperation, strengthening economic connectivity, and ensuring economic security, while highlighting the need to speed up key collaboration projects, and committing to continuing to create favourable conditions for over 2,000 Japanese businesses to invest and operate profitably in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese leader urged Japan to consider providing new ODA loans for strategic infrastructure projects, including metro lines, high-speed railways, and climate change adaptation initiatives in various localities across Vietnam.

He also proposed expanding cooperation to new areas such as digital transformation, green transition, circular economy, semiconductor, and artificial intelligence (AI); and deepening labour cooperation and training high-quality human resources; promoting locality-to-locality collaboration; and enhancing people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

Chinh expressed his hope that Japan will continue to implement policies to encourage and support Vietnamese nationals in Japan, and affirmed Vietnam's commitment to closely coordinate with Japan to ensure the success of EXPO 2025 in Osaka, Kansai.

For his part, Ishiba affirmed that Vietnam is a key partner in its Free and Open Indo-Pacific Initiative, hoping to deepen and make the Vietnam-Japan relationship more intensive and practical.

Stressing the importance of Vietnamese human resources for Japan's economic development, he asserted his commitment to continue creating opportunities for Vietnamese workers and apprentices to study and work in Japan through the “Employment for Skill Development Programme”, and helping Vietnam in training high-quality human resources.

The Japanese leader agreed with Chinh's proposals to enhance economic, trade, and investment cooperation, and committed to working together to address obstacles and facilitate collaboration between the two countries.

The two PMs also agreed to further strengthen political trust through high-level and all-level exchanges and meetings, and emphasised the importance of promoting defence and security cooperation, effectively implementing existing dialogue and cooperation mechanisms, and addressing common challenges in the region.

Discussing regional and international issues of mutual concern, they reached consensus on enhancing coordination, sharing stances, and supporting each other at multilateral forums such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the United Nations (UN), and Mekong sub-regional mechanisms.

Regarding the East Sea issue, both sides highlighted the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety and aviation in the sea; and solving disputes through peaceful means in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Chinh took this occasion to convey an invitation to visit Vietnam from Party General Secretary and State President To Lam to the 𓆏Emperor and Empress of Japan, and expressed his hope to soon welcome the Japa⛦nese PM to visit Vietnam. Ishiba accepted the invitation with pleasure, saying that he will arrange the trip in the coming time./.