Developing Vietnam's relations with Singapore and Japan more and more effectively

The recent visit of the National Assembly Chairman created new momentum, contributing to consolidating and enhancing political trust, developing the Vietnam-Singapore and Vietnam-Japan relations increasingly deeply and effectively.

National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man meets with Singaporean President Tharman Shanmugaratnam. (Photo: Doan Tan/VNA)

On the evening of December 7, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man and his wife, along with the high-ranking delegation of the Vietnamese National Assembly, returned to Hanoi, successfully concluding the official visit to the Republic of Singapore and Japan at the invitation of the Chairman of the Singaporean National Assembly Seah Kian Peng and his wife, and the President of the Japanese House of Councilors Sekiguchi Masakazu and his wife. Speaking to the press, Chairman of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee Vu Hai Ha said that the visit was a great success with many substantive results, creating new momentum, contributing to consolidating and enhancing political trust, and developing the Vietnam-Singapore and Vietnam-Japan relations more deeply and effectively. Reporter: How do you evaluate the results of the visit to Singapore and Japan by National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man and his wife, along with the high-ranking delegation of the Vietnamese National Assembly? Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Vu Hai Ha: Implementing the foreign affairs program of key leaders in 2024, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man paid an official visit to the Republic of Singapore and Japan from December 1-7. This is a visit to two very important partners of Vietnam in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. For Singapore, the visit took place in the context of the two countries celebrating the 50th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations, the 10th anniversary of establishing the Strategic Partnership and continuing to closely coordinate to soon bring the relationship between the two countries to a new height. Vietnam and Singapore both consider each other as leading important partners in the region, sharing interests and common strategic visions on many regional and international issues. For Japan, the visit of National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man took place right after the two countries upgraded their relationship to "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia and the World" at the end of 2023 and are actively implementing the content of this relationship. This is the first visit to Japan by the Chairman of our National Assembly in 12 years and coincides with the one-year anniversary of upgrading the relationship between the two countries to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The Chairman of our National Assembly is also the first foreign guest of the President of the House of Councilors of Japan Sekiguchi Masakazu after he was re-elected as the head of the House of Councilors of Japan. The official visit to Singapore and Japan by National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man and his wife along with the high-ranking delegation of our National Assembly was very successful with many substantive results, creating new momentum, contributing to consolidating and enhancing political trust, bringing the Vietnam-Singapore and Vietnam-Japan relations to increasingly deeper and more effective development. The high-ranking leaders of Singapore and Japan both gave the Chairman of the National Assembly and his wife and the delegation a very respectful, sincere, close and warm welcome, demonstrating the trust and very good political relationship between Vietnam, Singapore and Japan. In particular, the Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam's visit to Singapore at a time when the two countries agreed to soon upgrade relations has contributed to creating momentum, promoting ministries, branches and businesses of the two countries to actively implement the signed agreements and deals. Reporter: What are the results of the visit, sir? Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Vu Hai Ha: With a total of more than 50 activities of the Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam and the ministries, branches and localities participating in the delegation, the visit to Singapore and Japan has achieved many substantive and comprehensive results, on all channels of the Party, National Assembly, Government, people-to-people exchange and the pillars of the Strategic Partnership with Singapore and the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Japan. The content of the talks, meetings, and high-level exchanges was substantive and friendly, demonstrating high political trust. The senior leaders of Singapore and Japan both highly appreciated the significance of the first official visit to Japan by the National Assembly Chairman in his new position; affirming that Vietnam is a leading important partner in the Asia-Pacific region and ASEAN. Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru expressed his delight that President Luong Cuong and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had consecutive meetings with the Japanese Prime Minister in the past month, demonstrating the closeness and trust between the senior leaders of the two countries; assessing that Vietnam has great development potential and will soon become a leading developed country in Asia. President of the House of Councilors of Japan Sekiguchi Masakazu believes that 2024 will mark the beginning of the journey of cooperation between the two countries for the next 50 years. The Prime Minister and the Speaker of the National Assembly of Singapore both accepted the invitation to visit Vietnam in 2025. The President and Prime Minister of Singapore both respectfully invited and expressed their wish to welcome General Secretary To Lam to visit Singapore at an appropriate time, possibly in 2025 - the time when the two countries celebrate major holidays, such as Vietnam's 80th National Day, the 50th anniversary of the complete liberation of the South, national reunification, and the 60th anniversary of Singapore's National Day. Reporter: In the overall bilateral relations with Singapore and Japan, economic cooperation is identified as an important main pillar. How do you assess this content within the framework of the visit? Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Vu Hai Ha: Both sides affirmed that promoting economic cooperation continues to be the main pillar in the Vietnam-Singapore and Vietnam-Japan relations. Along with promoting traditional areas of cooperation, the two sides also agreed to strengthen economic ties, boost cooperation in the field of high-quality infrastructure, and propose directions for cooperation in new areas, such as emission reduction, semiconductors, energy, digital transformation, green transformation, etc., to concretize and deepen the new cooperation framework on all channels of the Party, National Assembly, Government and people-to-people exchanges. For Singapore, one of the highlights is the success of 18 Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIPs) in 13 provinces and cities of Vietnam. The leaders of your country emphasized that the VSIP 2.0 generation will not only increase in quantity but also meet new standards, such as green, smart and sustainable VSIPs. Singapore also highly appreciated the importance of establishing the Digital Partnership - Green Partnership, creating a premise to promote cooperation between the two countries in new growth areas, such as green logistics, data centers, semiconductor chip manufacturing, cooperation in ensuring energy security, food security, green finance; wishing to promote cooperation in connectivity, digital transformation and innovation, emphasizing that these are areas that Singapore prioritizes and Vietnam has potential with a team of young, talented experts. Regarding security and defense cooperation, both sides assessed this as an important field, with much room to promote and strengthen cooperation. Specifically, with Singapore, it is necessary to further promote dialogue mechanisms, exchanges between sea, land, and air forces, cooperation in cyber security, search and rescue, military medicine, promote maritime connectivity, protect the environment and marine ecology through the application of new technologies. With Japan, the two sides agreed to promote cooperation in the field of security and defense, including strengthening cooperation in United Nations peacekeeping operations; supporting Vietnam in overcoming the consequences of war, search and rescue, etc.

National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man and President of the Japanese House of Councillors Sekiguchi Masakazu sign a cooperation agreement. (Photo: Doan Tan/VNA)

The Japanese side supports strengthening cooperation in the fields of economy, ODA, investment, and bilateral trade, and said that Japan is promoting the diversification of supply chains and many Japanese enterprises wish to invest in Vietnam. In particular, Japanese enterprises highly appreciate the development of the Vietnamese economy, expect investment and business activities in Vietnam; affirm to continue contributing to promoting the relationship between the two countries in many fields of trade, investment, infrastructure development and human resources to further deepen bilateral economic cooperation. The leader of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) expects that the "Japan-Vietnam Joint Initiative in the New Era" agreed by the two sides to launch in March 2024 will achieve many results, especially in new areas such as green growth, digital transformation, innovation and development of high-quality human resources. Large and leading corporations and enterprises from Singapore and Japan have expressed their interest and desire to expand their investment in Vietnam in areas such as infrastructure construction, urban areas, energy, real estate, trade, retail, human resource training, labor cooperation, etc. Regarding ODA cooperation, the Chairman of the National Assembly thanked Japan for its active support for Vietnam over the past 30 years, making an important contribution to Vietnam's socio-economic development, infrastructure construction, institutional improvement, human resource training, and improvement of the investment and business environment through ODA capital. At the same time, he hoped that Japan would continue to effectively implement new-generation ODA support with high incentives, simple and flexible procedures for large-scale strategic infrastructure development projects in Vietnam and provide ODA to support human resource training. The President of the Japanese House of Councilors reaffirmed Japan's consistent policy of supporting ODA recipient countries, including Vietnam, to continue to develop sustainably and stably.

National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man receives Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tokyu Corporation. (Photo: Doan Tan/VNA)

Regarding labor cooperation and people-to-people exchange, at the talks and meetings, the Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam and the senior leaders of Japan agreed to strengthen the connection in human resource training through promoting labor cooperation, high-quality human resource training, and people-to-people exchange. The Japanese side highly appreciated the contribution of the Vietnamese community to the socio-economic development of Japan. Speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives Nukaga Fukushiro pledged to continue expanding the occupations and numbers of Vietnamese workers; improve the living and working environment, and equal social security for Vietnamese people in Japan. At the same time, he hoped that Vietnam would continue to send more workers to Japan, supporting Japan in coping with the issue of population aging. Reporter: Promoting parliamentary cooperation is one of the focuses of the visit to Singapore and Japan this time by National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man and the delegation. How do you evaluate this result? Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Vu Hai Ha: During the visit, both sides affirmed that the National Assembly/Parliament plays an important role in promoting bilateral relations; agreed to make joint efforts to concretize and deepen the Vietnam-Singapore Strategic Partnership and the Vietnam-Japan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership through the parliamentary channel by promoting cooperation and exchange of high-level delegations and all levels, exchanges and experiences between specialized agencies, parliamentarians, female parliamentarians, and young parliamentarians. Along with that, it is necessary to further promote the important bridging role of the Friendship Parliamentarians Group/Alliance in promoting people-to-people exchange, business cooperation and cooperation between localities of the two countries. In particular, the signing of the Cooperation Agreement by the Japanese House of Councillors for the first time with a foreign parliament is an important achievement of the visit, creating a legal basis for the legislative bodies of the two countries to continue to implement and concretize the achieved results as well as expand cooperation in various fields, contributing to deepening the Vietnam-Japan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. In order to promote substantive cooperation between the Vietnamese National Assembly and the Singaporean Parliament, the Chairman of our National Assembly and the Singaporean Senior Leaders agreed and supported the continued effective implementation of the Cooperation Agreement between the two National Assemblies, contributing to further developing the Vietnam-Singapore Strategic Partnership and soon raising it to a new level, while enhancing information exchange and sharing each country's experiences in perfecting institutions, policies, and legal systems, ensuring macroeconomic stability, expanding foreign relations, and improving the effectiveness of international integration. Thank you very much! Source: https://nhandan.vn/dua-quan-he-viet-nam-voi-singapore-va-nhat-ban-phat-trien-ngay-cang-hieu-qua-post849328.html