A senior Vietnamese parliamentarian has called for an enhancement of coordination between the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF) and other mechanisms in the region, in order to develop regional potential.

National Assembly Vice Chairwoman Tong Thi Phong made the appeal at the plenary session of the 20 th APPF meeting in Tokyo on Jan. 9, adding that APPF needs to adjust its structure to follow a closer and more practical trend of tightly coordinating with other regional mechanisms.

She said Asia-Pacific needs to increase dialogue and cooperation on peaceful settlements of regional disputes, including the East Sea issues on the basis of international law and existing cooperative mechanisms, especially the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

Phong affirmed Vietnam ’s foreign policy of being active in international integration and acting as a friend, reliable partner and highly responsible member state of the international community, proven by Vietnamese National Assembly’s active and responsible participation at regional and international parliamentary forums on political, security, economic, social and cultural areas.

The same day, on the sidelines of the meeting, Vice Chairwoman Phong met Deputy Chairman of Japanese House of Representatives Seishiro Eto.

Phong expressed thanks to Japan for its official development assistance to help Vietnam to develop infrastructure and affirmed that Vietnam will continue implementing the nuclear power project with assistance from Japan .

For his part, Eto expressed his wish to further develop the Japan-Vietnam strategic partnership and that Vietnam will become a more significant partner of Japan in Asia .

He thanked the Vietnamese Government and people for their assistance to Japan to overcome the aftermath of the natural disasters in Japan last year as well as facilitating Japan to take part in important projects to exploit rare earth minerals and build a nuclear power plant./.