State President Lương Cường (right) and Japanese PM Ishiba Shigeru at their meeting in Hà Nội on Monday. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — State President Lương Cường hosted a reception in Hà Nội on Monday morning for Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, who is on a three-day official visit to Việt Nam.

President Cường, on behalf of the State and people of Việt Nam, welcomed PM Ishiba's first visit to Việt Nam as head of the Japanese Government. He expressed his delight at witnessing the substantive, comprehensive and effective development of the bilateral relationship in all areas and achieving many new development steps 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 Việt Nam attaches importance to the relationship with Japan, supports Japan in promoting an increasingly active role and jointly contributes to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world. He believed that this visit by PM Ishiba will open a new stage of development in the bilateral relationship in a closer and more effective direction, meeting the interests of the people of the two countries, contributing to cooperation and development in the region.

PM Ishiba thanked President Cường for his warm welcome and was delighted to meet the President again since the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Week in Peru in November 2024 and to visit Việt Nam again after 35 years at a time when Việt Nam is organising activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the South and national reunification and witnessing great changes in Việt Nam.

The PM affirmed that Japan will continue to accompany and support Việt Nam in building an independent and self-reliant economy, realising the goals of becoming a developing country with modern industry and upper-middle income by 2030 and a developed country with high income by 2045.

Emphasising the importance of defence and security cooperation, PM Ishiba welcomed the two sides' recent announcement of the establishment of the 2+2 dialogue mechanism at the deputy foreign and defence minister level and expressed his wish that the two countries would further strengthen defence and security cooperation.

President Cường suggested the two sides effectively implement the signed cooperation agreements, while promoting and exchanging new cooperation contents.

He said that there is still much room for stronger economic cooperation between the two countries and suggested both sides deepen economic, trade and investment partnership, promote science and technology cooperation and implement specific cooperation projects in new areas such as digital transformation, green transition, high-quality human resource training, semiconductors and AI. The State leader also proposed Japan support Việt Nam in improving its capacity to respond to climate change and promote high-tech agricultural cooperation.

Highly appreciating the positive contributions of the 600,000 Vietnamese community to Japan, PM Ishiba affirmed that the Japanese Government will continue to support and create favourable conditions for Vietnamese people to live, study and work in Japan and hoped to further promote people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

Discussing regional and global 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 the international system of equality and fairness based on international law and the United Nations Charter.

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

On this occasion, the State President respectfully invited the Japanese Emperor and Empress to visit Việt Nam soon. — VNS