VKFTA promotes two-way trade between Vietnam and RoK

Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam's export to the Republic of Korea (RoK) in the period after the Vietnam-Korea Free Trade Agreement (VKFTA) came into effect (2016-2018) reached an average growth of 26.9 percent per year.

In 2015, Vietnam and the RoK signed a free trade agreement (Photo: VietnamPlus)

Two-way trade between Vietnam and the RoK has continued to grow strongly in recent years. In particular, the VKFTA has opened up many export opportunities for goods of both countries.

Promoting two-way trade

In 2015, Vietnam and Korea signed a free trade agreement. With this agreement, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, two-way trade between the two nations has continuously increased, reaching 5.97 billion USD in October 2019.

In the first 10 months of this year, the two-way trade turnover was over 56 billion USD. In which, Vietnam’s imports from the RoK totaled 39.4 billion USD while its exports to this market was 16.6 billion USD.

Notably, commodities that the RoK and Vietnam committed to reducing taxes experienced good growth in export turnover. They are seafood, textiles, furniture and wood products, footwear, fiber and vegetables of Vietnam, and the RoK’s computers, electronic products and components, textile and footwear materials, wires and cables.

Besides, the RoK’s foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam continued to rise sharply. According to statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in the 2015 – 2018 period, the RoK topped the list of the biggest foreign investors in Vietnam.

By September 20, 2019, South Korea continued to be the largest investor among 132 countries and territories investing in Vietnam with 8,190 valid investment projects capitalized at 65.77 billion USD in total.

The RoK investment projects in Vietnam are very diverse, ranging from processing, manufacturing, electronics and energy to transport infrastructure development, logistics, real estate, wholesale, retail and tourism. Most of the RoK’s big groups such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG, POSCO, SK, Lotte, Kumho-Asiana ... have been present in Vietnam.

Supporting Vietnamese firms in joining supply chain

Not only providing investments, the RoK’s leading businesses have supported Vietnamese firms in training human resources to improve management skills and quality control toward enhanced efficiency in order to enable them to participate deeply in the global supply chain.

Specifically, the training programme for fostering Vietnamese consultants - a cooperation project between the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam and Samsung Electronics (2018-2019) aims to train 200 Vietnamese consultants. These will be the key experts who play an important role in the proactive and sustainable operation of the training programme for consultants in Vietnam in the future.

Korean goods introduced to consumers in the capital city. (Photo: VietnamPlus)

According to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai, after two years of implementing the project (2018 - 2019), the trainees have gained the necessary knowledge and skills to become a professional consultant who can carry out projects related to manufacturing and quality improvement consultancy at their own enterprises or other businesses.

The Vietnamese businesses that participated in the project have achieved positive results such as increasing productivity, changing and raising awareness of production and quality improvement, paving the way for the companies’ long-term and sustainable development.

By continuing to maintain that activity, businesses will surely achieve greater outcomes, improve competitiveness, increase access to and deep participation in the global production and supply chain.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai speaks at a conference to review the project. (Photo: VietnamPlus)

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai emphasized that this is a very practical programme for setting up a contingent of excellent consultants that help improve production competitiveness for Vietnamese enterprises.

Choi Joo-ho, General Director of Samsung Vietnam, said that the success of the training programme for fostering Vietnamese consultants will be the premise for Samsung to continue implementing other cooperation programmes with larger scale to affirm its commitment to being one of the "leaders" in developing Vietnam’s support industries./.