Geneva (VNA) - Vietnam expects that Japan willcontinue to play a leading role in strengthening the multilateral tradingsystem, facilitating trade and investment, and contributing to regional andglobal development and prosperity, said AmbassadorLe Thi Tuyet Mai, head of the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the UN, WTO andother international organisations in Geneva.

Speaking at Japan’s 14th Trade Policy Review session at the WTOheadquarter in Geneva, Switzerland, from July 6-8, Mai said Vietnam highlyvalued Japan's role in the global economy, in the Asia-Pacific region and forVietnam, and welcomed Japan as one of the important members in the rules-basedmultilateral trading system.

While highlighting the fruitful development of trade and investment relations betweenVietnam and Japan, the ambassador affirmed that Japan has been one of Vietnam'sleading trade and investment partners over the past decade.

In 2008, the two countries signed the Comprehensive Economic PartnershipAgreement - the first comprehensive free trade agreement of Vietnam, she added.

New-generation free trade agreements that both Vietnam and Japan are joining suchas the ASEAN-Japan Agreement on Comprehensive EconomicPartnership (AJCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), as wellas the RegionalComprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that the two sides are joining negotiations, are paving the way for the two countries to step up cooperative relations,contributing significantly to bilateral trade and investment ties, and their cooperationin other areas such as sustainable development, she stated.  

According to the ambassador, Japan has actively participated in and promotedcommitments to trade and investment liberalisation in the WTO and other forumssuch as the Group of Seven (G7), the group of world leading developing andemerging economies (G20), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC),and other regional mechanisms to address challenges to global trade.

The 14th Trade Policy Review session provided an opportunity for WTOmembers to comprehensively examine economic, trade and investment policies ofJapan - one of the world’s largest commodity and service economies.

Most of the WTO members said Japan's trade and investment policies are opening andtransparent, and the country is one of the members playing an important role inthe global trading system. The country has contributed to supporting anddefending the rule-based multilateral trading system, promoting trade andinvestment liberalisation, and strengthening the role of the WTO./.