The Deputy PM highlighted the thriving Vietnam-Japan extensive strategic partnership on the basis of the consolidated political trust, saying the two countries have become leading partners in economics, trade and investment.

Japan has been Vietnam’s largest official development assistance (ODA) provider with total capital amounting to roughly US$27 billion. The East Asian nation is also the fourth biggest trade partner of Vietnam with two-way trade reaching around US$38 billion last year.

Japan’s investment projects have made considerable contributions to socio-economic development and job generation in Vietnam, Dung said, adding that Japan ranks second among countries and territories investing in the Southeast Asian nation, with more than 4,300 projects worth nearly US$60 billion.

Vietnam hopes Japanese investors will expand their investment and cooperation with local enterprises in such sectors as farming machinery, agro-fishery processing, electronics, shipbuilding, auto and spare parts, environmental industry, energy saving, infrastructure, energy, support industry and high-tech, Dung told his guest.

He hailed the contributions of Yoshiki and other FEC members to advancing cooperation and friendship between Vietnam and Japan over the past years, including the organisation of a host of business delegations to Vietnam since 2011.

For his part, Onoi said he is greatly impressed by Vietnam’s economic development over the past time, and pledged his best efforts to contribute to the country’s development through people-to-people diplomacy.

The council will arrange more trips to Vietnam for Japanese businesses to seek investment opportunities, support Vietnamese investors in Japan and hold people-to-people exchanges, he added.