Vietnam – Japan Joint Committee Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation

On the Japanese party were Mr. Makoto Katsura, Ambassador in charge of Science and Technology, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs; representatives of the Japanese Embassy in Vietnam and other participants from Japan.

The meeting’s agenda had the overall assessment on the current situation, opportunities and challenges as well as tasks and solutions in order to strongly promote bilateral cooperation on S&T between Vietnam and Japan. In this meeting, the participants from the Japanese and Vietnam party focused on topics as high-technology agriculture, environment protection technology, environment and waste treatment technology, climate change response, appropriate use of water resources… which are the matters of strategic priorities for Vietnam’s economic development as well as S&T capacity development.

Delivering a speech at the Meeting, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Trần Quốc Khánh highly appreciated the cooperation between the two countries. The Deputy Minister emphasized throughprevious 3 meetings of the Joint Committee on Science and Technology Cooperation, based on achieved agreements, corporation on scientific research and technology development between Vietnam and Japan has become diversified, various and thorough and achieved remarkable results. For example, the cooperation between Vietnam’s Agricultural Genetics Institute and Japan’s Chemistry and Physics Research Institute in the field of Japan’s biology technology; cooperationbetweenVietnam Academy of Science and Technology and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in the aerospace technology field; cooperation between the Institute of Geography and Japan’s Center for Nautical Science and Technologyon seismology and many cooperation projects within the framework of the joint research program approved by Japan’s Government through
Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). In addition, S&T organizations as well as scientists of the two countries have actively collaborated, shared information, carried out many research themes in order to solve issues regarding methodologies and practices in which the two parties are interested.

Deputy Minister Trần Quốc Khánh highly appreciated Japan’s support regarding capacity building for Vietnam’s S&T units, especially cooperation activities within the framework “Science and Technology Research Partnership Program for sustainabledevelopment” (STATREPS) and “Regional Joint Research Science and Technology Innovation Program of Southeast Asia”.

The achieved results are remarkable, however, they are not equivalent to potentials and demands of cooperation with the spirit of thorough strategic partnership which has been affirmed by high-level leaders of the two countries in the Joint Vietnam – Japan Statement signed on the occasion of the State-level visit paid by President Trương Tấn Sang to Japan in March 2014.

Mr. Makoto Katsura, Ambassador in charge of S&T, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said this has been a precious opportunity, through discussions we can find cooperation opportunities in new fields in addition to the fields we have achieved results in S&T. For proposals the participants made during the meeting, the Japanese party would continue studying and reviewing to have effective cooperation activities in order to expand the cooperation and promote S&T development of the two countries. The Japanese party would expand activities as agricultural research, joint research programs, S&T research program for sustainable development…


Concluding the meeting, the representatives of the two countries agreed that the 5th Joint Vietnam – Japan Committee Meeting on Science and Technologywould take place in Japan and signed the Memorandum of Understanding of the 4th Meeting.