Vietnam's president left for Japan yesterday for the first visit by a head of state from the communist country to its largest aid donor and one of its leading foreign investors.
Ahead of the five-day visit, Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet said he looked forward to both sides soon freeing up trade and investment flows with an economic partnership agreement (EPA) that would transform bilateral ties.
The president was joined by key ministers and more than 100 business executives, the Thanh Nien daily reported.
Triet last week said he welcomed Japan's offers to help build a north-south railway and highway links and a high-tech industrial zone, and he also encouraged more investors from the economic powerhouse to come to Vietnam.
"I would like to call on Japanese investors to help manage the massive traffic problems in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi," he said, referring to the congested streets in Vietnam's largest city and the capital.
Triet also thanked Japan for its overseas development aid, which had topped US$11 billion and made up about a third of the total aid to Vietnam over the past 15 years, the state-run Vietnam News daily reported.
Speaking about the 54 deaths in the September collapse of a bridge being built in the southern Mekong delta by Japanese companies, Triet said the incident was unfortunate but would not impede relations, state media said.
Japan and Vietnam established bilateral ties in 1973, when the Southeast Asian nation was still at war. Today the developing country is a fast-emerging economy that last year recorded over 8 percent economic growth.
Two-way trade between Japan and Vietnam topped US$10 billion this year, state media said, and Japan had more than 900 investment projects worth about US$8.8 billion in Vietnam as of last month.
Vietnam, which is set to join the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member next year, has also sought to become a more prominent regional diplomatic player, hosting talks early this year between Japan and North Korea.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS