On 13 November, during their working visit to Japan, a delegation of Da Nang’s leaders, led by the municipal People's Committee Chairman Mr Huynh Duc Tho, met with leaders from Japan’s Yokohama City.

The two sides agreed to extend the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in April 2013 which established bilateral cooperation between Da Nang and Yokohama City.

Chairman Tho said he would like the Mayor of Yokohama City, Mr Hayashi Fumiko, to consider assisting his city in training high-quality local human resources, and to facilitate attracting investment into both localities.  Mr Tho also said that his city is in need of help with organising short-term training courses for the city’s government employees in order to improve their professional skills.

In addition, the city leader took the opportunity to ask Yokohama’s government to expand the bilateral cooperation with Da Nang on urban management, investment, trade and tourism.  He asked Mayor Fumiko to appeal for a business or a group of businesses from Yokohama City to conduct research on the building of an industrial park in Da Nang in the future.  The park would be exclusively for businesses from Japan.

The meeting in progress

Also on the same day, Chairman Tho paid a visit to the Da Nang representative office in Yokohama City.  The city leader asked leaders of the municipal Department of Foreign Affairs, and those from the representative office, to boost bilateral cooperation between businesses in Da Nang and Yokohama City, and Japan as a whole.