Minister Vo Hong Phuc told the Press about Vietnam-Japan investment cooperation after his visit to Japan in mid-November, 2005.
During your official visit to Japan, you had many talks with Japanese ministers of economy, trade and investment could you please tell us what they evaluate the prospect of investment cooperation between the two countries in the coming time?
During my time in Japan, I realized that Japan has been implementing a new policy towards Vietnam. In my talks with Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Science and Technology and Minister of Territory and Transport, they affirmed that the Government of Japan paid great attention to Vietnam’s economic development capacity in the coming time. Vietnam has maintained a prolonged and stable economic growth.
They appreciated the economic achievements of Vietnam in the past 5 years, the 2005’s planned economic growth of 8.5 per cent.
They also appreciated the next five-year socio-economic development plan with objective of maintaining a stable and high growth rate, attaching great importance to macroeconomic stability, mobilizing outside resources and continuing an open foreign policy.
Japan affirmed that Vietnam has sufficient capacity to attract Japanese investment thanks to its education system and good labour force, geo-political stability and social security. Among ten Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam is considered the most favourable investment environment due to political and social stability. Vietnamese people are sincere in cooperation relation and wish to be friend with all countries. These are key factors to make them place their confidence in cooperation with us.
Vietnam and Japan signed the Agreement on Investment Liberalization, Promotion and Protection in 2003. Could you tell us about the results of the Agreement implementation ever since?
Vietnam - Japan Agreement on Investment Liberalization, Promotion and Protection was signed on the basis of openness and mutual understanding. It is considered a model to strengthen future investment cooperation between the two countries. The Agreement paved the way for Japan to trustfully invest in Vietnam. In addition, both sides have carried out other programs such as the Vietnam-Japan Joint Initiative by the Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and his Japanese counterpart Junichiro Koizumi. Both sides have cooperated closely together to settle problems in investment cooperation, making Japanese believe in the Vietnamese investment environment.
With the brilliant prospect of future investment cooperation between the two countries, how has Vietnam been preparing to readily receive the second “investment flow” from Japan?
In the meetings with Japanese high-ranking officials as well as representatives from big corporations such as: Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Toshiba, Cannon and some banks such as Tokyo Bank, I realized that they showed their determination to create a new investment flow into Vietnam. They affirmed that financial, insurance institutions, banks as well as commercial companies and producers planned to invest in Vietnam.
In their opinion, the “investment flow” into Vietnam will be seen clearly in the coming time. The reasons are Japanese available capital resource due to its economic renewal and the mobilization of the prolonged savings of post-second world war’s generation. They held that this is Vietnam’s opportunity to receive the investment flow.
For Vietnam’s part, we affirmed to try our best to promote investment environment. The priories are legal environment improvement and the development of the Enterprise Law, an Investment, Commerce, Competition and Intellectual property right Laws as well as economic laws in relation to creating a fair legal environment in our open and integration process. In addition, a numerous economic policies such as tax and land policy…should be perfected synchronously to create a fair business environment for both foreign and domestic investors.
In addition, Vietnam should develop a new labour force to absorb Japanese high technology because in the coming time, Japanese investment into Vietnam will not only focus on garment and footwear but also on high-tech sector and fields requiring a qualified labour force. Therefore, our task is human resource training. The Government of Vietnam has had changes in training plan, attaching great importance to skilled worker and engineer training. In specific cases, both sides will coordinate in this field, according to that Vietnam will send human to Japan for training.
Japan held that infrastructure is one of Vietnam’s shortcomings. Compared with other countries in the region, Vietnam’s highway and railway traffic system, seaport and airport are still limited. In the coming time, Vietnam will continue upgrading infrastructure, requiring ministries of Japan to increase ODA for Vietnam to carry out those programs. In addition, Vietnam will boost administrative procedure reform, corruption eradication to create a transparent environment facilitating investors’ activities.
Vietnamese
