At the event (Photo: VNA)The roundtable saw the presence of ASEAN Secretary GeneralLim Jock Hoi, senior officials of ASEAN countries and Japan, Ambassadors ofJapan and ASEAN member states to Hanoi, and representatives from Vietnameseministries, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japan InternationalCooperation Agency (JICA) and the region’s leading scholars and researchers.
This is Vietnam’s initiative to create an opportunity forASEAN countries and Japan to look back on the five decades of cooperation and putforward orientations for the next period.
In his opening remarks, Vietnamese Foreign Minister BuiThanh Son said that Japan is a reliable friend and partner of ASEAN, and theASEAN-Japan Strategic Partnership is one of the most meaningful andcomprehensive relationships of ASEAN with its partners, spanning throughvarious fields for peace and prosperity, and for the quality of life.
The Vietnamese delegation at the event (Photo: VNA)He emphasised the importance of economic, trade andinvestment cooperation as the foundation for ASEAN-Japan relations,appreciating Japan’s development cooperation, technical assistance and timelyand valuable support for ASEAN countries, including Vietnam, especially innarrowing the development gap, the development of sub-regions, and the response to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
The Vietnamese representative pointed out the potentialfor collaboration between ASEAN and Japan in the coming decades, based on thecommon values of open economic linkages, and promoting a rules-based andpeople-connected regional structure that ASEAN and Japan share.
Vietnam always strives to contribute to building a"heart-to-heart" relationship on the basis of mutual trust and equalpartnership between ASEAN and Japan, he added.
Japan’s First State Minister for Foreign Affairs WashioEiichiro expressed his gratitude for and appreciated contributions ofVietnam as the coordinator for ASEAN-Japan relations since 2018.
He affirmed that Japansteadfastly promotes its strategic partnership and effective cooperation withASEAN to jointly respond to challenges from the rapidly changing andunpredictable regional and international environment.
He expressed his hope that both sides will focus on implementingthe Joint Statement of the 23rd ASEAN-Japan Summit on Cooperation on ASEANOutlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP), and shared Japan’s plans to organise activitiesin celebration of the 50th anniversary of ASEAN-Japan relations,including a Commemorative Summit in Japan in 2023.
Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of the Vietnam ASEAN SOM, emphasised major orientations to promote ASEAN-Japan relations in thecoming time, and expressed his belief that Thailand, the next coordinator ofASEAN-Japan relations, will continue to maintain the momentum of cooperationand develop the ties to a new height./.
VNA
