President Luong Cuong meets with Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru. Photo: Lam Khanh/VNA

At the meeting, President Luong Cuong, on behalf of the State and people of Vietnam, welcomed Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru's first visit to Vietnam as head of the Japanese Government; expressed his delight at witnessing the substantive, comprehensive and effective development of the bilateral relationship in all areas and the many new developments and outstanding achievements after nearly two years of upgrading the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia and the world.

The President affirmed that Vietnam attaches importance to its relations with Japan and supports Japan in playing an increasingly active role, contributing to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world. He believes that Prime Minister Ishiba's visit will open a new stage of development in the bilateral relationship towards closer and more effective relations, meeting the interests of the people of both countries and contributing to cooperation and development in the region.

Prime Minister Ishiba thanked President Luong Cuong for his warm and cordial welcome and was delighted to meet the President again since the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit Week in Peru in November 2024 and to visit Vietnam again after 35 years at a time when Vietnam is organizing activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification and witnessing the great changes in Vietnam.

Prime Minister Ishiba affirmed that Japan will continue to accompany and support Vietnam in building an independent and self-reliant economy, realizing the goals of Vietnam becoming a developing country with modern industry and high middle income by 2030, and a developed country with high income by 2045.

Emphasizing the importance of defense and security cooperation, Prime Minister Ishiba welcomed the recent announcement of the establishment of the 2+2 Dialogue mechanism at the Deputy Ministerial level of Foreign Affairs and Defense and expressed his hope that the two countries would further strengthen defense and security cooperation. President Luong Cuong suggested that both sides effectively implement the signed cooperation agreements and promote and discuss new cooperation contents.

President Luong Cuong meets with Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru. Photo: Lam Khanh/VNA

President Luong Cuong said that there is still much room for economic cooperation between the two countries to be promoted, and suggested that both sides deepen economic, trade and investment cooperation, promote science and technology cooperation, and implement specific cooperation projects in new areas such as digital transformation, green transformation, high-quality human resource training, semiconductors, AI, etc.; support Vietnam in improving its capacity to respond to climate change; and promote high-tech agricultural cooperation.

Appreciating the positive contributions to Japan of the 630,000 Vietnamese community in Japan, Prime Minister Ishiba affirmed that the Japanese Government will continue to support and create favorable conditions for Vietnamese people to live, study and work in Japan; wishing to further promote people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

Discussing world and regional issues, the two sides agreed to strengthen coordination, share positions, cooperate and support each other on regional and international issues of mutual concern and in multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations, APEC, ASEAN, and Mekong, contributing to strengthening an equal and fair international system based on international law and the United Nations Charter.

President Luong Cuong expressed his gratitude to Japan for supporting ASEAN's stance on resolving disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982).

On this occasion, Chairman Luong Cuong respectfully invited the King and Queen of Japan to visit Vietnam soon.

VNA

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/chu-tich-nuoc-luong-cuong-hoi-kien-thu-tuong-nhat-ban-ishiba-shigeru-post411720.html