Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Sunday hosted separate receptions for Japanese Foreign Minister Gemba Koichiro, who is in Hanoi for the fourth session of the Vietnam-Japan Cooperation Committee. Party leader Trong affirmed Vietnam ’s consistent policy of treasuring the strategic partnership with Japan and expanding cooperation and exchanges for the benefit of both peoples, thus contributing to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world. He suggested the two countries closely work together to organise the Vietnam-Japan Friendship Year in 2013 when they will celebrate the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties. Minister Gemba Koichiro said that the Japanese people and businesses want to strengthen relations with Vietnam and proposed both sides increase high-level visits and promote contacts between political parties and parliaments as well as cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

At his meeting with Foreign Minister Gemba Koichiro, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung hailed the outcomes of talks between the two foreign ministers and the fourth session of the Vietnam-Japan Cooperation Committee. The PM added that the two Governments need to put forward mega cooperation projects agreed by both sides, such as the construction of Ninh Thuan nuclear-power plant 2 and the development of rare earth industry in Vietnam. Minister Gemba Koichiro said expressed Japan’s support of free trade, secure and safe maritime navigation on the East Sea, and the solution of disputes through peaceful measures on the basis of international law, particularly the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the serious implementation of the Declaration on the Code of Conducts of parties in the East Sea (DOC) towards the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).