On September 13, commencing at 1:15 p.m., Prime Minister Shinzo Abe received a courtesy call from H.E. Mr. Pham Binh Minh, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, who was on a visit to Japan as a guest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The overview of the meeting is as follows.

1. Foreign Minister Minh started the meeting by expressing his congratulations to Prime Minister Abe regarding Tokyo’s successful bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020. He stated that mutual visits of VIPs have been vigorously taking place between Japan and Viet Nam, and that the government and people of Viet Nam highly appreciated that Prime Minister Abe chose Viet Nam as the first country in his first trip abroad after taking office.. Furthermore, Foreign Minister Minh conveyed his appreciation to Japan for provision of three yen loans amounting to approximately 500 million dollars, which were announced at the 5th Meeting of the Japan-Vietnam Cooperation Committee on September 12. He also expressed his intention to continue to work to further improve investment environment in Viet Nam.
   
   
2. In response, Prime Minister Abe thanked Foreign Minister Minh for his words of congratulations regarding the Olympics. He stated that Viet Nam is an important strategic partner of Japan and Japan will continue to cooperate on economic development in Viet Nam, and that Japan will welcome efforts of Viet Nam to develop its investment environment.

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