President Vo Van Thuong (L) receives leaders of the Japan-Vietnam Parliamentary Friendship Alliance in Tokyo on November 27, 2023. (Photo: WVR/Nguyen Hong)

At the reception, the Vietnamese President proposed Nikai and the Alliance continue to pay attention to and promote cooperative relations between the two legislative bodies, promoting the exchange of parliamentarians, young leaders, and female parliamentarians of the two countries.

He also called for enhancing the role of parliamentary friendship organisations as well as boosting cooperation in new fields such as digital transformation, green transition, high-tech agriculture, education, labour and tourism.

President Thuong thanked members of the alliance, especially Nikai and former PM Suga, for always caring and giving friendly and sincere sentiments to Vietnam and its people and for their effective contributions to the development of the relations between the two countries.

Affirming that locality-to-locality cooperation, youth and cultural exchanges are important factors that connect the two countries, he urged parliamentarians to support the organisation of more cultural festivals in both countries, as well as exchange programmes for young generations and strengthening substantive connections among localities, thereby contributing to the sustainable development of the Vietnam-Japan relations in the future.

For their part, the Japanese officials expressed their confidence that the Vietnamese President's visit to Japan will help bring the bilateral relations to a new height.

They said that they will continue to pay attention and support the promotion of collaboration with Vietnam in all fields, particularly labour, agriculture, science and technology, and energy and people-to-people exchanges.

They also pledged to make utmost efforts to promote the Vietnam-Japan University project - a symbol of cooperative relations between the two countries.