Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will pay an official visit to Japan from Oct. 18-22 to strengthen relations between the two countries, a foreign ministry spokesperson announced Thursday.

The visit aims to "reaffirm Vietnam's consistent policy of attaching importance to the friendly and multi-faceted cooperative relations with Japan, and strengthen trade and investment ties," spokesman Le Dung said at a regular press briefing.

During the five-day visit, the Vietnamese prime minister is scheduled to hold talks with his newly-elected Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, and meet with Japanese Emperor Akihito, leaders of the Japanese Senate and representatives of some big economic groups, he said.

The Vietnam-Japan ties have smoothly developed in many fields in recent years, the spokesman said, adding that Vietnamese prime minister will be the first foreign guest of Shinzo Abe.

Japan is now one of Vietnam's biggest trade and investment partners. In 2005, their trade rose 19.7 percent to more than 8.5 billion U.S. dollars, according to the Vietnamese Trade Ministry.

By the end of last year, Japan had 600 operational investment projects with total registered capital of nearly 6.3 billion dollars in Vietnam, becoming the third biggest investor in the country, after Singapore and China's Taiwan, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Source: Xinhua