South Korean National Assembly Speaker visits Vietnam to promote relations

At the invitation of National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, Mr. Chung Sye-kyun, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, will lead a high-ranking delegation of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea on an official visit to Vietnam from April 24-26.

South Korean National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun. Photo: EPA/VNA.

Since Vietnam and South Korea established diplomatic relations in December 1992, the two countries have twice upgraded their relationship to "Comprehensive Partnership in the 21st Century" in August 2001 and continued to upgrade it to "Strategic Cooperative Partnership" in October 2009.

That affirms the will and political determination of the leaders and people of the two countries, and at the same time creates an important political foundation to bring the friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and Korea to a new strategic height in all fields.

It can be seen that the Vietnam-Korea "Strategic Cooperative Partnership" maintains a strong, comprehensive and increasingly in-depth development momentum, with delegation exchanges and high-level contacts between the two countries being maintained regularly.

Along with political relations, economic cooperation between the two countries has also grown strongly, especially in the fields of trade, investment, development aid, tourism and labor.

To date, Korea has emerged as one of Vietnam’s leading economic partners. Vietnam is also increasingly becoming an important partner of Korea.

South Korea ranks first in terms of investment in Vietnam with 5,500 projects, total registered capital reaching over 50 billion USD. Most of the large Korean corporations such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG, POSCO, SK, Lotte, Kumho-Asiana... are present in Vietnam.

South Korea is Vietnam's leading important partner in the field of development cooperation and is currently Vietnam's second largest bilateral ODA donor.

The two sides are currently discussing the signing of a framework credit agreement for the 2016-2020 period. Accordingly, Korea plans to provide 1.5 billion USD in ODA capital to Vietnam.

In addition, bilateral cooperation mechanisms continue to be maintained, such as the Joint Ministerial Committee on Nuclear Power, Energy and Industry; the Vietnam-Korea Intergovernmental Committee on Economic Cooperation. Trade turnover in 2016 reached 43.2 billion USD (up 17.7% compared to 2015).

The Vietnam-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which took effect on January 20, 2015, created new momentum to contribute to achieving the goal of raising bilateral trade turnover to 70 billion USD by 2020 according to the high-level agreement between the two countries in 2013.

There are currently more than 140,000 Vietnamese people in Korea, including about 50,000 workers, 60,000 married immigrants, and 10,000 international students.

South Korea also has about 140,000 overseas Koreans in Vietnam, most of whom are businessmen. The large overseas Korean community of the two countries has been an important bridge, contributing to consolidating and enhancing friendship, mutual understanding and cooperation between the two sides.

Along with the increase in political and economic cooperation, people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries have also developed rapidly.

Thereby contributing to enhancing mutual understanding, creating a solid foundation for building long-term relations between the two countries.

The two sides regularly organize friendly exchange activities, contributing to understanding and trust between the people of the two countries.

More than 40 provinces, cities and localities of the two countries have signed and are effectively implementing cooperation activities, including major cities in Vietnam such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Da Nang and major cities in Korea such as Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Daegu...

The two countries are promoting negotiations to sign an agreement on mutual legal assistance in civil and commercial matters to ensure legitimate rights and create conditions for citizens of each country to feel secure living and working in the other country.

Regarding the relationship between the two National Assemblies, the friendship and cooperation between the two National Assemblies have been constantly consolidated and developed well on both bilateral and multilateral levels, actively contributing to promoting the Vietnam-Korea strategic cooperative partnership.

Since 2006, the two sides have signed a cooperation agreement between the two National Assemblies. This is an important legal document for the two sides to build and develop a sustainable friendship and multifaceted cooperation.

This document was re-signed during the official visit to Korea in July 2013 of the high-ranking delegation of the Vietnamese National Assembly led by National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung.

In recent times, when the two countries elected new National Assemblies, the Chairmen of the two National Assemblies of the new terms (in the last four terms) visited each other. The exchange of delegations at all levels and the Friendship Parliamentary Groups were promoted and achieved high efficiency.

Currently, the relationship between the two National Assembly Secretariats is maintained with good cooperation activities.

The official visit to Vietnam by the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea and the high-ranking delegation of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea comes in the context that the two countries are organizing many activities to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam-Korea diplomatic relations.

The visit aims to actively promote the Vietnam-Korea strategic cooperative partnership.

The two sides discussed bilateral cooperation issues between the two countries and the two National Assemblies in the coming time, as well as international and regional issues of mutual concern./.

According to Vietnamplus