# "Project for Human Resource Development of Technicians at Hanoi University of Industry" Technical Cooperation Project (January 2010 - Current)

Vietnam

Vietnam has moved toward a market economy, and has maintained a high rate of economic growth since the implementation of the Doi Moi reform program in 1986. Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007. Because of these factors, Vietnam has seen a dramatic increase in the advance of foreign companies and establishment of joint venture companies. However, there are not enough capable technicians who can meet the needs of industry, so the development of technical human resources has become a significant issue. Thus, Japan has launched a technical cooperation project to review and revise educational and training methods and develop instructors focusing mainly on the fields of machinery and metals. The project is conducted from Hanoi University of Industry, a base school for the training of technicians in northern Vietnam. This cooperation is expected to establish frontline systems of development of industrial human resources that match the needs of industries including Japanese companies, in Vietnam.

Students receiving practical training on a lathe (Photo: JICA)

## Relations with China

Since 1979 Japan’s ODA to China has provided assistance for the development of infrastructure in coastal areas, environmental issues, improvement in basic human needs such as health and medical care, and the development of human resources, thereby contributing to the steady development of the Chinese economy. Japan’s assistance has also played a significant role in promoting and maintaining the reform and opening up policy of China. The majority of this assistance was provided to China in the form of ODA loans. In addition to supporting the development of the economic relationship between Japan and China, this ODA has functioned as a fundamental pillar of the multilayered Japan-China relationship. On a variety of occasions, Chinese side including Chinese summit level have expressed gratitude. In light of China’s remarkable economic development in recent years, both countries recognized that new disbursement of Japan's ODA loans to China would come to an amicable conclusion by the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Such new disbursement ended with the signing of Exchanges of Notes for six projects in December 2007.

On the other hand, the people of both Japan and China face many common strategic issues including global issues such as environmental problems, infectious diseases, and other problems that may have direct impact on Japan as well. During Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Japan in May 2008, the two countries issued the "Joint Statement between the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China on Comprehensive Promotion of a Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests" to confirm that the nations would place particular emphasis on cooperation in the fields of energy and the environment, and made a joint statement on climate change. In addition, as supporting each other's peaceful development between Japan and China, it is important to deepen mutual understanding between the people of the two countries.

In the current China-Japan relationship that aims to achieve and deepen “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests,” and taking into consideration the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties between Japan and China in 2012, it has become important to build a new type of cooperation between Japan and China. However, China has developed economically, and has seen an increase in its technological level, so aid to China through ODA has already fulfilled its role to a certain degree. In light of these circumstances, implementation of purely exchange projects through ODA will stop, and future ODA for China will be limited to the promotion of mutual understanding at the grassroots level and to efforts to deal with shared challenges faced by both countries (for example, measures against pollution, yellow sand, and infectious diseases that cross into Japan, and the resolution of other such issues, as well as the creation of systems and standards to increase the predictability of companies that enter the Chinese market), and to areas that will be beneficial to Japan.