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A number of trade promotion activities were carried out in 2010. Notably, Vietnamese companies took part in many international fairs in Japan. Those included Interiorlifestyle 2010 which took place at the Tokyo International Exhibition Center (Tokyo Big Sight). That was a big fair with more than 800 stalls presenting products of companies from different continents, including the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) region. At the fair, Vietnamese products, especially handicrafts, attracted lots of Japanese visitors. Seventy percent of Vietnamese companies which took part in the fair received orders. At the 2010 ASEAN Food and Drink Exhibition, visitors were very interested in Vietnamese agricultural and aquatic products, especially preliminarily processed products which will be further processed to become finished products for sale in supermarkets and retail shops.

Many other events were organized successfully. Those included a workshop that was held in Hanoi to discuss measures to boost the export of Vietnamese handicrafts to Japan. This workshop was held during the time experts from the ASEAN-Japan Center for Trade, Investment and Tourism Promotion (AJC) were in Vietnam to choose suitable companies to take part in an exhibition entitled Life Style Vietnam 2010 in Japan. Another event was a trade exchange week in Fukuoka. In the framework of the Life Style Vietnam 2010 exhibition, AJC organized a seminar on the potential for export of Vietnamese handicrafts to Japan. Within three days, nearly 2,000 visitors came to Vietnamese stalls (the number of visitors to Vietnamese stalls was fivefold the number of visitors to Thai and Lao stalls). All Vietnamese companies which took part in the exhibition received orders with total value of US$5 million. Notably, Vietnamese handmade embroidery products were very attractive to customers.

In 2010, many programs were implemented aiming to present Vietnam's policies to promote trade and industrial investment cooperation with Japan, cooperation between Vietnamese representative trade offices and Japanese localities, set up a Vietnamese goods import network in big cities of Japan, and arrange for Japanese importers to come to Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and other provinces/cities of Vietnam.

The book titled 'Directory of Vietnamese Exporters to Japan' was reprinted providing Japanese businesses with updated information about Vietnamese products and helping them seek Vietnamese partners.

Numerous activities were carried out to promote investment cooperation between Vietnam and Japan. A Japanese survey team came to Vietnam to learn about the comparative advantages of industrial parks and economic zones here and to seek opportunities to invest in the support industries here. A workshop was held in Tokyo to promote Japanese investment in Vietnam, providing Japanese investors with information about the potential as well as the environment, policies and opportunities for investment in Vietnam in general and in Binh Duong Province in particular. In the near future, a Vietnamese investor delegation will come to Japan to attend an investment promotion workshop that will take place in Osaka. They will discuss with the Kansai Economic Union a cooperation plan for the coming period.

In the first 11 months of 2010, Vietnam received 398,572 Japanese tourists, 22.8 percent more than in the same time of 2009. Japan ranks third, behind China and the Republic of Korea, in terms of the number of tourists to Vietnam.

In 2010, the Vietnam Culture and Tourism Week took place in Tokyo, Japan. During the time Vietnam participated in the World Tourism Congress and Travel Fair, an annual event organized by the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA), a road-show program was held in Tokyo to popularize Vietnam's tourism. A workshop themed 'Developing sustainable tourism' took place in Hanoi. A training course was organized in Ho Chi Minh City to help domestic travel companies and hotels improve their knowledge of the Japanese tourism market so that they can create new products to better serve Japanese tourists.

Also in 2010, the third meeting of the Vietnam-Japan Tourism Cooperation Committee was held and the two sides agreed to make joint efforts to realize the target set for Vietnam to receive one million Japanese tourists by 2015 and encourage Vietnamese people to take tours to Japan.

All the above activities have created and will continue to create opportunities for Vietnam to increase exports to Japan as well as to attract more Japanese investors and tourists.

The above activities were presided over by the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade and implemented in association with the Foreign Investment Agency of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, with active support from AJC. AJC is a trade, investment and tourism promotion organization established in 1981, which operates under the guidance of the Japanese Government. Vietrade plays the role of a coordinator for Vietnam to take part in AJC's activities. The Vietnamese Embassy in Japan has contributed significantly to making the above events a success./.