HCMC – Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio will pay an official visit to Vietnam from April 30 to May 1 at a time when the two nations see their ties growing stronger than ever.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs is quoted by the Vietnam News Agency as saying that his April 30-May 1 Vietnam visit is made at the invitation of Vietnam’s PM Pham Minh Chinh.
In November last year, PM Chinh became the first foreign government leader to visit Japan after Kishida Fumio took office as Japanese prime minister.
Japan, a leading economic partner of Vietnam, was the first Group of Seven (G7) country to recognize Vietnam as a market economy in October 2011. Japan is Vietnam’s biggest official development assistance donor, third largest foreign investor, third biggest tourism partner, and fourth largest trade partner, according to Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper.
Two-way trade between the two countries amounted to US$42.7 billion. In the first quarter of this year, bilateral trade expanded 11% year-on-year to US$11.2 billion.
Data from the Foreign Investment Agency at the Ministry of Planning and Investment showed that by March 20, 2022, Japanese companies had got involved in 4,828 investment projects in Vietnam with total pledged capital of US$64.4 billion, making Japan the third biggest investor after South Korea and Singapore.
By December 2019, Japan’s yen-denominated loans for Vietnam had amounted to US$23.76 billion equivalent, making up 26.3% of the total foreign loans given to the Vietnamese Government.
