Hanoi  - Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito met with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet Tuesday as local press reported Japanese aid to Vietnam may resume this spring.

Naruhito met with Triet at Vietnam's Presidential Palace after laying a wreath at the tomb of former Communist leader Ho Chi Minh Tuesday morning. In the afternoon Naruhito visited a school for the blind that has received Japanese aid.

According to Vietnamese press reports, Vietnam-Japan Special Ambassador Sugi Ryotaro told Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at a reception for the crown prince Monday that his government wanted to resume official development assistance (ODA) by April.

Sugi is a film actor with a longstanding interest in Vietnam whose ambassadorship is only an honorary title, and his reported statement is not authoritative. But the Japanese Foreign Ministry's spokesman in Tokyo last week also indicated a resumption of ODA was likely soon.

Japan, Vietnam's largest bilateral donor, suspended all new ODA in December over Vietnam's failure to cooperate with Japanese investigations into a transportation aid kickback scandal. In the scandal, executives at Pacific Consultants International (PCI), a Japanese consulting group, were convicted of bribing Ho Chi Minh City transportation officials between 2003 and 2006 in exchange for contracts on the city's East-West Highway project.

Huynh Ngoc Si, former deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City's Department of Transportation, allegedly received 820,000 dollars. Former PCI executives have said the total amount of bribes exceeded 2 million dollars.

While the Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Japan is now satisfied with Vietnam's cooperation in the case, Vietnamese press reported Dung was not satisfied with Japan's.

The newspaper Tuoi Tre (Youth) reported Dung told Sugi that Vietnam had prosecuted several officials involved in the PCI scandal and forwarded the charges to Japanese justice officials. But Dung said Vietnam had received no reply from the Japanese.

Dung also reportedly criticized Japan for drawing too much attention to the PCI case, generating negative public opinion.

Vietnam is among the largest recipients of Japanese ODA in Asia, with over 1 billion dollars in total future commitments. Japanese companies frequently receive contracts for construction work and consulting on Japanese-funded ODA projects. (dpa)