Prime Ministers Nguyen Xuan Phuc (front, right) and Shinzo Abe move to the press room after their talks in Tokyo on October 8 (Photo: VNA)

Vietnam and Japan established diplomatic ties on September 21, 1973. In the ensuring 45 years, the two countries have become important partners. Since they upgraded their relationship to extensive strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia in March 2014, their ties have developed strongly, comprehensively, and practically

Comprehensive, practical relationship

The Vietnam-Japan relationship is now the best it has ever been. High-ranking leaders of the two countries regularly exchange visits and maintain contacts at regional and global forums, Last year, the Japanese Emperor and Empress visited Vietnam, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Vietnam twice, and the Speaker of the Japanese Lower House made his first visit to Vietnam in 15 years. 2017 marked a milestone in bilateral ties following the Joint Statement on Deepening the Vietnam-Japan Extensive Strategic Partnership issued during Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s visit to Japan last June.

Japan is Vietnam’s top economic partner and was the first G7 country to recognize Vietnam’s market economy status in 2011. Japan is now Vietnam’s second largest investor, 4^th biggest trade partner and 3^rd largest tourism partner. Last year, their two-way trade valued at 33 billion USD. Vietnam’s exports to Japan totaled 17 billion USD. In the first three months of this year, trade between the two countries totaled 8.7 billion USD, 16% more than last year. As of August, Japan had 3,865 valid FDI projects worth more than 55 billion USD, the second most 116 countries and territories invested in Vietnam. At 30% of Vietnam’s total ODA, Japan is Vietnam’s largest ODA donor. Japanese projects have contributed greatly to Vietnam’s economic growth.

The two countries have strengthened cooperation in national defense, security, culture, education, training, tourism and people-to-people exchanges. Last year more than 800,000 Japanese tourists visited Vietnam and nearly 300,000 Vietnamese visited Japan. Vietnam has more than 75,000 students studying in Japan, more than any other country. The two countries have many cooperation programs between localities.

In the last few years, Vietnam and Japan have worked closely at international forums like the UN, ASEAN+, APEC, and ASEM. They cooperated to make the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Da Nang in 2017 a success and promoted the negotiation and signing of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Stronger Strategic Partnership

During Japan visit, Prime Minister Phuc held talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, met Japanese Emperor, leaders of the Japanese Parliament, the President of the Japan-Vietnam Parliamentary Alliance, and leaders of Japanese enterprises. At their talks on Monday, the two Prime Ministers agreed to strengthen political trust through maintaining exchanges, to promote cooperation in economics, national defense, security, human resource training, and military technology transfers, and to share experience in maritime economic development. Prime Minister Phuc asked Japan to exempt Vietnamese students from income and residency taxes and facilitate tourism visas for Vietnamese tourists. Prime Minister Abe applauded Vietnam’s sustainable growth and promised to support Vietnam’s development through ODA and investment projects. He said Japan will help Vietnam build an e-government, reform the administrative procedures, increase its productivity, and improve the business environment to attract more investors.