State President meets Speaker of Japan’s House of Councillors

President Tran Dai Quang (left) shakes hands with Chuichi Date, Speaker of House of Councillors of the Japanese National Diet during their meeting, Tokyo, May 30, 2018

Speaking at the meeting, Chuichi Date expressed his pleasure to welcome President Tran Dai Quang and the high-level Vietnamese delegation to Japan when the two countries are celebrating the 45th anniversary of their diplomatic ties. He thanked President Quang, his spouse and Vietnamese people for their warm reception for Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko when they visited Viet Nam in early 2017.

He also said he is pleased to see the strong, comprehensive and practical development of the Viet Nam-Japan extensive strategic partnership with a number of high-level visits and people-to-people exchanges in recent years.

President Quang, for his part, also expressed his delight at the robust and substantive growth of the bilateral relations over the past 45 years, especially since the two countries upgraded their ties to the Extensive Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia in 2014.

Viet Nam always sees Japan as a top and long-term partner, he emphasised.

The Vietnamese State leader proposed the two nations to step up cooperation between their legislative bodies with enhanced exchanges of information and experience in law making. He also asked his host to support the promotion of Japanese trade and investment activities in Viet Nam and the continued ODA provision for the Southeast Asian nation’s key projects, particularly in high-quality human resources training and climate change adaption.

Furthermore, he wanted the two sides to continue strengthening cooperation in labour affairs, expanding people-to-people exchanges and creating conditions for their people to live, study and work in each country.

He moved on to ask the National Diet of Japan to strongly back ASEAN’s stance on the East Sea issue and help Viet Nam improve the capacity of marine law enforcement forces.

Speaker Chuichi Date highly spoke of Viet Nam’s success in hosting the 26th Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF-26) and suggested the two sides further bolster ties at multilateral parliamentary forums and promote exchanges between their parliamentary agencies, particularly between young parliamentarians in the time ahead.

He affirmed Japan will continue partnering with and assisting Viet Nam in the socio-economic development, contributing to taking the bilateral extensive strategic partnership to a new height for the benefit of the two countries’ people.

President Tran Dai Quang and his spouse are on a State visit to Japan from May 29 to June 2. The visit aims to affirm Viet Nam’s consistent external policy of independence, self-reliance, multilateralisation and diversification in international relations, as well as the importance that the country attaches to strengthening the extensive strategic partnership with Japan.

The visit also seeks to bolster the close relationship and political trust between senior leaders of Viet Nam and Japan, contributing to strengthening the bilateral extensive strategic partnership.

Viet Nam and Japan set up their diplomatic ties in September 1973. Over the past years, the two countries have become important partners of each other in many fields. Since Viet Nam and Japan lift their relationship to Extensive Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia in March 2014, the two sides have enjoyed strong, comprehensive and practical progress in bilateral ties.-VNA