Hanoi (VNA) - Speaker ofthe National Assembly (NA) of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Chung Sye-kyun onApril 24 began a three-day official visit to Vietnam at the invitation of his Vietnamesecounterpart Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.
As part of activities to mark the 25th anniversary of Vietnam-RoK diplomaticrelations, the visit aims to promote the strategic partnership between the twonations.
The two NAsestablished cooperation with an agreement inked in 2006. The document wasresigned during the official visit of Vietnam’s NA delegation to RoK led bythen Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung in July 2013.
The relationship between Vietnam and the RoK was upgraded to a comprehensivepartnership in 2001 and a strategic partnership in 2009.
The development of Vietnam – RoK tieshas affirmed the determination of the two nations’ leaders and people, and laida political foundation for raising friendship and cooperation to a new height.
Along with the strong growth inpolitical relations, the economic partnership between the two nations has alsowitnessed strong development, particularly in trade, investment, assistance,tourism and labour.
The RoK has become one of Vietnam’s leading economic partners, ranking firstamong investors in Vietnam, with 5,500 projects, worth over 50 billion USD.Many large RoK brands have entered Vietnam, such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG,POSCO, SK, Lotte, Kumho-Asiana.
The RoK is also the second biggestprovider of official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam. The twocountries are discussing a credit framework agreement for 2016-2020, underwhich the RoK plans to provide 1.5 billion USD in ODA for Vietnam.
Trade value between the two nationsreached 43.2 billion USD in 2016, up 17.7 percent from 2015. The Vietnam – RoKfree trade agreement, effective from January 20, 2015, is hoped to create a newdriving force for the two sides to realise the trade value target at 70 billionUSD by 2020 in line with the high-level agreement in 2013.
There are more than 140,000Vietnamese people in the RoK, including 50,000 labourers and 10,000 students.About the same number of RoK people are working and living in Vietnam, most ofthem are businessmen.
Cultural exchanges have also beenheld regularly to enhance mutual understanding and trust between the twonations’ people.-VNA
VNA
