Participants pose for a group photo at the conference (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The eighth international economic and financial conference of Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) took place in Hanoi on March 22.
The event was jointly held by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in coordination with Vietnam's Ministry of Finance, the RoK’s Financial Services Commission, and EDaily magazine.
Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Xuan Ha said the cooperation between Vietnam and the RoK has deepened in various fields after over 25 years of establishing diplomatic ties, particularly in economics and finance.
He noted that in 2018, two-way trade reached 65.7 billion USD.
The RoK is now the biggest foreign investor in Vietnam. In the past five years, the RoK’s annual registered foreign direct investment (FDI) has always been at around 7-9 billion USD.
The RoK is also one of Vietnam’s biggest bilateral donors with many loans through the Korea Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF). So far, the RoK Government has signed 55 credit agreements with Vietnam worth a total 2 billion USD.
More than 6,600 RoK investors have joined the Vietnamese stock market and six RoK-invested securities companies are active in Vietnam. RoK insurance firms are also operating effectively in Vietnam.
The Deputy Minister gave a brief overview on the economic situation in Vietnam, highlighting an impressive growth of over 7 percent in 2018.
Last year, Moody and Fitch credit ratings organisations upgraded their outlook on Vietnamese Government bonds to stable, he said.
Vietnam is an ideal destination for major trans-national groups, including those from the RoK such as Samsung, LG and Lotte, he added.
The Southeast Asian country has attracted more than 27,000 FDI projects with total registered capital of over 335 billion USD over the past 30 years. The total FDI disbursement was 185 billion USD.
In the coming time, the Vietnamese Government will push ahead with institutional reforms while maintaining macro-economic stability, curbing inflation, and ensuring major balances of the economy, he said.
“We will continue restructuring the economy, especially public investment, State enterprises, in addition to improving the business environment and promoting economic growth in a rapid and sustainable manner,” the deputy minister affirmed.
While evaluating the cooperation potential of the two countries, chairman of EDaily Kwak Jea-sun said Vietnam is the most important partner of the RoK in the ASEAN in terms of promoting new investment policies in all arenas such as education and human resource exchanges.
He noted that in 2018, the two countries exchanged 3.3 million workers and Korean companies have been continuously expanding investment in Vietnam.
Commercial transactions between the two sides have been promoted, he said, adding that Vietnam is the third biggest export partner of the RoK, after China and the US.-VNA
VNA
