TANAKA Akihiko

Nguyen Truong Son, the general director of Cho Ray Hospital, right, and JICA President Akihiko Tanaka stand in front of a plate commemorating Japan's official development assistance.
Le Hoang Quan, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, right, and JICA President Akihiko Tanaka after their talks

JICA President Akihiko Tanaka visited Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Feb. 24-26, held talks with Le Hoang Quan, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, and visited the sites of ODA projects.

In their talks, Tanaka and Quan affirmed that Japan and Vietnam are partners that share regional issues and are in a complementary economic relationship. Quan expressed appreciation for JICA's cooperation so far, and he also mentioned that he anticipates support for small and medium enterprises and supporting industries as part of Japan’s ODA, in addition to past transport infrastructure and environmental projects.

During his visit, Tanaka confirmed that Japanese assistance to Ho Chi Minh City, which is experiencing striking growth, is being used effectively.

Next, Tanaka visited Cho Ray Hospital, to which Japan has been providing cooperation for many years. He saw how it is greatly trusted by citizens and plays a large role as the central hospital of the country's southern region, receiving more outpatients than it has capacity for.

And in the field of transportation infrastructure cooperation, Tanaka confirmed the operation of the Saigon East-West Highway, which was built using Japanese technology and boasts Southeast Asia's longest and Vietnam's first immersed tube tunnel, at 1,490 meters. He also checked on the North-South Expressway (Ho Chi Minh City-Dau Giay), which was co-financed with the Asian Development Bank and had provisionally opened a few days earlier. In addition, Tanaka confirmed that Japan's cooperation is contributing to human and merchant exchange in the southern region. He visited the site of the Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway Constriction Project [Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien Section (Line 1)] as well.

On Feb. 26, using the Southern Economic Corridor (an economic corridor connecting southern Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangkok, Thailand, built with cooperation from JICA, *), Tanaka traveled on land from Ho Chi Minh City to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. In so doing, he checked on the state of this piece of transport and transportation infrastructure supporting the economic development of the Mekong region as an artery.

• (*) JICA's contribution to the achieving the “Vital Artery for East-West and Southern Economic Corridor” (PDF, 223 kB, Japanese)