Thus, this is the third consecutive year, Vietnam has become an attractive destination to Japanese investors and these enterprises continue to place high expectations on the potential and growth possibility of the Vietnamese economy.

During the 30-year period of attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), capital inflow from Japan has always occupied an important position, which has been increasingly diverse and pouring into areas that Vietnam is paying much attention to.

Japanese enterprises are evaluated to operate effectively and seriously while complying well with the laws of Vietnam, contributing to promoting economic growth and creating jobs for locals.

Working style and skills of Japanese enterprises are always appreciated while Japanese investment projects in Vietnam run effectively with good technologies. Japanese investment is considered a high-quality capital flow and has become a model for the cooperation relationship between Vietnamese enterprises and FDI enterprises.

In particular, Japan has maintained a high and stable rate of investment in Vietnam and has always been one of the two leading FDI countries in Vietnam for many years.

But in 2019, investment capital from Japan decreased to the fourth position in the list of countries and territories investing in Vietnam, the lowest position in the past five years. Notably, this decline occurred in the context that Japan has continued to increase investment in Asian countries.

On a global scale, Japan has replaced the US to become the world’s largest country investing abroad as it has maintained an investment scale of more than US$100 billion over the past eight years.

While many companies have been moving out of China, Vietnam is still not in the choice of large enterprises because Vietnam remains at the middle level of the regional and global production chains. This fact requires more effort from Vietnam to attract Japanese investment as expected.

For many years, recommendations of Japanese enterprises have focused on improving the investment and business environment, developing supporting industries and improving the quality of labour training.

Investors believe that the biggest risk they may face is the unilateral withdraw of incentives when policies change, complicated and overlapped administrative procedures, limited supply of electricity, and delays in investment and payment for infrastructure projects.

56% of enterprises also said that they still encountered difficulties in purchasing components, accessories and materials from the Vietnamese market even though they wish to expand purchasing from the domestic market and this rate hasn’t changed compared to previous years.

In order to take full advantage of and absorb the ‘wave’ of Japanese investment as well as attracting new-generation FDI capital, the Government needs to improve the institution and remove difficulties and obstacles that enterprises have recommended.

In particular, special attention should be paid to comprehensive solutions regarding enhancing the business environment, improving labour quality and developing supporting industries.

Doanh revealed the information during a working meeting with US Under Secretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Ted McKinney and Chief Agricultural Negotiator Gregg Doud on February 24.

The deputy minister added that Vietnam has also approved the export of six types of US fresh fruit to Vietnam, namely cherry, pear, grape, apple, blueberry and orange, and is assessing the biological safety risks with four other fruits.

At the meeting with US officials, as part of his working visit to the US, Deputy Minister Doanh asked the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to soon recognise the Hanoi Irradiation Centre and Toan Phat Irradiation Company as eligible for fresh lychee irradiation so that Vietnamese exporters can reduce costs from transporting the fruit to southern irradiation centres.

He also called for US inclusion of vapor heat treatment to sterilise fresh fruits exported to the US, in addition to irradiation, and to finalise risk assessment procedures so that Vietnamese pomelo can be exported to the US.

The US Department of Agriculture is expected to send a delegation to Vietnam from March 2-13 to conduct a periodical review of Vietnam’s catfish products.

Vietnam pledges cooperation during the review and ensures that Vietnamese catfish exported to the US are high quality, safe and reasonably priced.

Thus, lychee is the fourth fresh fruit of Vietnam, after dragon fruit, mango, and banana allowed to be imported into the Japanese market - one of the world’s most demanding markets in regards to quality standards and food hygiene and safety.

This is a great opportunity to stabilise the production and consumption of lychee while reducing the oversupply during peak harvesting times. In particular, this opportunity is more important in the complicated development of the Covid-19 epidemic that has cause heavy impacts on many types of Vietnamese agricultural products that are currently not being exported to China and some other markets.

However, many stricter requirements are set for our country's lychee growing areas, especially for main lychee hubs such as Hai Duong and Bac Giang, to change their production methods to properly and fully meet the most stringent standards of the Japanese market.

The Plant Protection Department has issued documents guiding localities to proactively and quickly implement requests from partners, particularly accelerating the process of granting areas codes and ensuring the traceability of farming areas.

Accordingly, the minimum registered area is 5ha per coded area and the rate of lychee trees flowering in the coded area is from 70%. In addition, the production diary of lychee gardens must be kept in a record and inspected and granted a code by the Plant Protection Department.

The lychee farming gardens must also apply control methods to deal with Bactrocera dorsalis and absolutely not use plant protection drugs on the banned list.

Furthermore, the package and fumigate of lychee fruits must comply with the regulations on plant quarantine of the MAFF.

Thus, Vietnamese localities with large lychee farming areas should have plans to connect enterprises with planting areas and managing plant quarantine before exporting while monitoring the planting areas and the implementation of other necessary conditions.

In addition, authorised agencies must make efforts to facilitate the implementation of administrative procedures regarding the export of the fruit while farmers should raise their awareness in production and exporters raise their accountability in export activities.

Farmers should strictly abide by importers’ regulations on the production process and exporters must ensure the buying of products meeting all the set requirements to ensure the long-term reputation of Vietnamese lychee as well as other agricultural products that are under negotiation to be exported to other countries.

The penetration into such a fastidious market will be a driving force for Vietnamese agricultural products to escape dependence on established markets and gain confidence to compete at a global level.