HCMC – Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, speaking at a meeting in Tokyo today with his Japanese counterpart Kishida Fumio, proposed Japan continue providing new-generation ODA loans for Vietnam to develop strategic infrastructure development projects, such as the North-South high-speed railway.
PM Chinh is in Japan for a high-level conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of ASEAN-Japan relations and for bilateral activities in Japan. This is the 6th meeting between the two PMs in the past two years and the second this year, reported the Vietnam News Agency (VNA).
Vietnam is working on strategic infrastructure development projects such as the North-South express railway, urban rail lines, supporting industries, new industrial zones, climate change response, digital transformation, green transformation and healthcare, he said.
Japan, he added, should consider new-generation official development assistance (ODA) loans for Vietnam to carry out the above projects.
He proposed Japan support Vietnamese businesses to join in the global supply chains of Japanese companies in fields such as automobile manufacturing, electronics, medical equipment and textiles.
PM Fumio said Japan would provide continued support for Vietnam in industrialization, modernization, building an independent, self-reliant, internationally integrated economy, and successfully implementing its industrialization and modernization strategy.
The two sides expressed high appreciation of positive progress in key economic cooperation projects between the two countries in the past.
Japan’s ODA this year has exceeded 100 billion yen and this is the first time it has reached this level since 2017.
They affirmed the commitment to further stepping up economic cooperation between the two countries, and agreed to establish a government-level joint coordination group to boost several cooperation projects which are underway between the two countries, including the Nghi Son oil refinery project.
