In April 2014, a delegation of Hai Phong People's Committee led by Chairman Duong Anh Dien paid a working visit to Fukuoka, Japan. During this visit, Hai Phong City and Kitakyushu City signed a twinning agreement.
Vietnam - Japan Strategic Partnership has been developing more comprehensively and substantively, especially intensive and extensive local cooperation. In the Kyushu region, prefectural governments are very interested in cooperating with Vietnam by expanding exchanges and cooperation with Vietnamese localities. Typically, Fukuoka, the capital of Kyushu, signed a five-year friendship cooperation agreement with Hanoi in 2008 and the two localities renewed the next five years in August 2013.
Through the support of the Vietnam Consulate in Fukuoka and studies on cooperation potentialities and advantages of each side, Hai Phong and Kitakyushu, a city of Fukuoka, signed a five-year friendship cooperation agreement in 2009. On that basis, the two cities built their five-year cooperation plans (2009-2013), with focus on environment, education, human resource development, and cultural exchange. The two cities’ leaders usually pay shuttle visits in a bid to have comprehensive exchange and cooperation. Particularly, Kitakyushu helped Hai Phong to fill wastes using Fukuoka methods in a wide scope. The pilot water filtering project using Kitakyushu’s Upward Biological Contact Filtration (U-BCF) processing techniques was successfully deployed in Hai Phong. With this result, the Japanese Government recently decided to grant non-refundable ODA of US$15 million to Hai Phong City to build the water treatment facility using U-BCF technology.
From five-year cooperation achievements, Kitakyushu and Hai Phong thought of a cooperation agreement at higher level. A delegation of Hai Phong People’s Committee led by Mayor Duong Anh Dien paid a working visit to Fukuoka from April 17-19, 2014. The delegation consisted of 16 officials from the Department of Planning and Investment, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Taxation, the Department Inspection and the Department of Environment and many business representatives. After the working meeting with the Consulate of Vietnam on April 17, 2014, Chairman of Hai Phong People’s Committee Duong Anh Dien and Mayor of Kitahashi City signed a twinning agreement on April 18, 2014 to upgrade the bilateral relations from "friendly cooperation" to "sister cities".
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Mayor Kitahashi of Kitakyushu City stressed that “Kitkyushu has not signed any twinning cooperation agreement with any city for 26 years and we are now very honourable to be twinned with Hai Phong City." Chairman Duong Anh Dien of Hai Phong City affirmed that the development of Hai Phong City could not lack “Japan factor" and Kitakyushu City always played an important role in that development process.
The twinning agreement will open up a new phase of close and effective cooperation, especially in economic cooperation - a priority of the two cities. For Hai Phong enterprises, the Japanese market is defined to have rich potential cooperation, mainly in import, export, technological cooperation, capital, high-quality human resources, knowledge and management skills. In addition, governmental agencies of Hai Phong pay much attention to human resource development, send managerial personnel to Kitakyushu for further training, and invite Japanese experts to the city for consulting and training. Clearly, the cooperation between Hai Phong and Kitakyushu is developing steadily and substantially. The two sides are attempting to concretise cooperation programmes and projects and assert right steps consistent with their own potential strengths. The agreement signing will result in comprehensive cooperation in all fields, thus helping promote Vietnam - Japan strategic partnership.
(Source: Consulate General of Vietnam in Fukuoka, Japan).
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