Vietnam, Japan promote financial cooperation

A delegation from the Finance Ministry led by Minister Ho Duc Phoc on March 11 had a working session with Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki and representatives from Japanese partners to promote bilateral financial cooperation.

At the event, the two ministers expressed their delight to see the increasingly strong development of the two countries' relations, especially the upgrade of the ties to the Vietnam - Japan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia and the World last November.

They discussed the two countries' financial cooperation in several areas, such as taxes, customs, loans, aid, and use of official development assistance (ODA), while sharing experience and solutions to improve management capacity and professional operations of functional units.

Phoc said that Vietnam's public debt is currently about 37% of GDP, lower than the set target of 60%. This is an advantage for Vietnam to attract capital from foreign countries to invest in infrastructure as well as socio-economic development.

The Vietnamese minister informed the host of Vietnam’s North-South high-speed railway project, that has an estimated investment of 67 billion USD and will be implemented in 2027. Vietnam expects to mobilise 30% of the investment from foreign capital. Therefore, Vietnam hopes that Japan will participate in providing capital for this project.

In addition, the two ministers expressed support for each other in multilateral financial cooperation such as within the ASEAN 3 framework, focusing on areas such as the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) and Disaster Risk Finance (DRF) to enhance regional financial stability and resilience.

For his part, Japanese Minister Shunichi Suzuki highly appreciated the Vietnamese Government's efforts in creating favourable conditions for Japanese businesses and banks to cooperate and invest in Vietnam. He also expressed his willingness to join the North-South High-Speed Railway project as well as other infrastructure projects that Vietnam is set to carry out.

On the same day, Minister Phoc and the Vietnamese delegation met with President and Chief Executive Officer of Mizuho Bank Masahiko Kato.

At the meeting, Phoc said Vietnam needs a huge amount of capital for development, including the mobilisation of domestic and foreign financial sources to achieve socioeconomic development goals, particularly the financial resources to realise its commitments to net-zero emissions by 2050.

Masahiko Kato said that Vietnam is one of Mizuho's strategic markets through investment cooperation with Vietcombank. Currently, many Japanese businesses wish to expand their investment scale in Vietnam, and Mizuho always accompanies and supports capital for these businesses.

He also said that his bank stands ready and will work with Vietcombank so as to provide green credit according to environmental -social - governance (ESG) standards.

Earlier, Phoc and the delegation visited the Japan Exchange Group (JPX), and worked with the President of the Japan Financial Services Agency (JFSA) and the President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)./.