Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính and his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba have their first meeting on Friday in Laos since Ishiba took office on October 1. VNA/VNS Photo

VIENTIANE — Việt Nam considers Japan as a leading important, reliable, and long-term partner, Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính affirmed while meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba in Vientiane, Laos, on Friday, on the sidelines of the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits.

This is the first meeting between the two PMs since Ishiba took office on October 1.

Congratulating Ishiba on his election as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and PM of Japan, Chính affirmed that Việt Nam supports Japan's positive contributions to peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the region and the world.

He emphasised the importance of enhancing economic cooperation, strengthening economic connectivity, and ensuring economic security, while highlighting the need to speed up key collaboration projects, and committing to continuing to create favourable conditions for over 2,000 Japanese businesses to invest and operate profitably in Việt Nam.

The Vietnamese leader urged Japan to consider providing new ODA loans for strategic infrastructure projects, including metro lines, high-speed railways, and climate change adaptation initiatives in various localities across Việt Nam.

He also proposed expanding cooperation to new areas such as digital transformation, green transition, circular economy, semiconductor, and artificial intelligence (AI); and deepening labour cooperation and training high-quality human resources; promoting locality-to-locality collaboration; and enhancing people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

Chính expressed his hope that Japan will continue to implement policies to encourage and support Vietnamese nationals in Japan, and affirmed Việt Nam's commitment to closely coordinate with Japan to ensure the success of EXPO 2025 in Osaka, Kansai.

For his part, Ishiba affirmed that Việt Nam is a key partner in its Free and Open Indo-Pacific Initiative, hoping to deepen and make the Việt Nam-Japan relationship more intensive and practical.

Stressing the importance of Vietnamese human resources for Japan's economic development, he asserted his commitment to continue creating opportunities for Vietnamese workers and apprentices to study and work in Japan through the “Employment for Skill Development Programme”, and helping Việt Nam in training high-quality human resources.

The Japanese leader agreed with Chính's proposals to enhance economic, trade, and investment cooperation, and committed to working together to address obstacles and facilitate collaboration between the two countries.

The two PMs also agreed to further strengthen political trust through high-level and all-level exchanges and meetings, and emphasised the importance of promoting defence and security cooperation, effectively implementing existing dialogue and cooperation mechanisms, and addressing common challenges in the region.

Discussing regional and international issues of mutual concern, they reached consensus on enhancing coordination, sharing stances, and supporting each other at multilateral forums such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the United Nations (UN), and Mekong sub-regional mechanisms.

Regarding the East Sea issue, both sides highlighted the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety and aviation in the sea; and solving disputes through peaceful means in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). — VNS