Strengthening Cooperation with Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

In a meeting with government and business delegation of Kanagawa, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung reaffirmed that Vietnam always wants to strengthen strategic partnership between the two countries. The Government of Vietnam will support and create favourable conditions for all cooperation activities between Vietnam’s localities and Kanagawa Prefecture, contributing to the overall cooperation between the two countries.

 

At the meeting, Yuji Kuroiwa, proposed the establishment of an industrial park of Kanagawa in Vietnam. Mr Yuji Kuroiwa said that Kanagawa is a national strategic zone of Japan with advantages in agricultural techniques. With the existing advantages, Kanagawa is very willing to support training of agriculture technical manpower for Vietnam. Prior to this proposal, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung welcomed and promised to create optimal conditions and desired that the Kanagawa authority would conduct survey and decide to establish an industrial park in Vietnam shortly.

 

Also during the visit, Mr Yuji Kuroiwa and the Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment (MPI) Nguyen Van Trung signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the MPI and the Kanagawa authority to concretize the cooperation relationship. Accordingly, in addition to exchange of information and providing human resources for promotion activities, MPI and Kanagawa were committed to taking steps to best support the business community both sides to expand investment. Accordingly, the two sides agreed to designate the agencies in charge of investment promotion and trade transactions. Vietnam assigned the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA), and Kanagawa authority assigned the Department of Industry and Labor of Kanagawa to take charge.

 

According to MPI Deputy Minister Nguyen Van Trung, the signing of the Memorandum on Understanding this time is the premise, opening up a new stage of development to promote economic-trade-investment relations between Vietnam and Japan. Reportedly, Kanagawa’s GDP in 2013 amounted to US$307 billion, on par with countries such as Denmark, Thailand. With strong economic strength and fast growth, the prospects for investment cooperation with Kanagawa will be very positive. In addition, Mr Trung assessed that Kanagawa in particular and Japan in general has strong potential for industrial development with high quality human resources. The sectors that Vietnam needs to attract investment from Japan are in line with six priority industries in the industrialisation strategy of Vietnam under the Vietnam – Japan cooperation framework towards 2020 vision 2030, including shipbuilding; agricultural machinery; electronics; automotive parts and accessories; agricultural processing - seafood - environment and energy saving. Extending this relationship will create favourable conditions for Vietnam to realize the industrial objectives.

 

Also, according to the evaluation of Do Nhat Hoang, Director of FIA, Kanagawa Prefecture is considered Japan's 3rd locality after Aichi and Saitama to set up direct investment relations with localities in Vietnam through promotion channels of MPI. According to the FIA, currently there are about 40 companies from Kanagawa doing business in Vietnam.