The Korea Development Bank (KDB) of the Republic of Korea joined hands with the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment to host a seminar in Seoul to call for investment in Vietnamese industries.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Bich Dat led a delegation to the event, which drew the interest of about 100 RoK businesses.

After Vietnam and the RoK officially established diplomatic ties in 1992, many RoK groups have come to Vietnam with large-scale projects in hand and the KDB set up a branch in Ho Chi Minh City in 2008 to better provide them with services.

According to Kyung Chae Jung, executive director of the KDB’s International Banking Division, Vietnam’s abundant availability of natural and human resources would combine well with RoK businesses’ technologies and their investments to reap great benefits for both sides. The KDB pledged to do its best to assist RoK investors in Vietnam, Mr. Kyung said.

Deputy Minister Dat reasserted the country’s consistent implementation of its foreign investment policy, in which the foreign investment sector is regarded as an important component of the national economy and is highly valued for the contributions it makes to the country’s socio-economic development.

He mentioned that the RoK is one of Vietnam’s largest foreign investors, registering over 22 billion USD in investment capital covering 2,300 projects.

So far, RoK businesses have paid close to 1 billion USD to the state budget of Vietnam and generated jobs for more than 350,000 Vietnamese labourers.

Currently, RoK businesses have invested in almost every area of Vietnam’s national economy, including telecommunications, real estate development, car making, shipbuilding, the hotel and restaurant industry, infrastructure construction, and retail services, Deputy Minister Dat said.

He highlighted for the participants Vietnam’s political stability, consistently high GDP growth rate, as well as its promising market of 86 million people and a rapidly improving legal climate for foreign businesses as advantages the country can offer to investors to draw more of them in.

Recently, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) coordinated with the Vietnamese Embassy in the RoK and relevant agencies to organise a series of investment promotion forums in Seoul and Pusan to help RoK businesses to seek investment opportunities in Vietnam./.