Secretary General of the NA and Head of the NA’s Office Nguyen Hanh Phuc

The NA’s Office unveiled this information after Korean media outlets reported on September 23 that nine of the members of the Vietnamese NA working delegation to the RoK last December ran away to illegally stay in the RoK.

Secretary General of the NA and Head of the NA’s Office Nguyen Hanh Phuc said, according to initial information, the nine people were members of a Vietnamese business delegation who came to the RoK to attend a Vietnam-RoK investment and trade forum jointly held by Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Korean Embassy in Vietnam, and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. They were not members of the Vietnamese NA working delegation, he stressed.

Visas were granted to those people to attend the forum, Phuc said, adding that to facilitate their attendance at the event, the business delegation was allowed to travel on the same flight with the NA working delegation.

Before the business delegation returned home, competent agencies found that nine of its members ran away, intentionally staying illegally in the RoK.

At that time, the Vietnamese NA’s Office sent documents to with the Ministries of Public Security, Planning and Investment, and Foreign Affairs, asking them to coordinate with the Vietnamese Embassy in the RoK and local authorities bring them back to Vietnam.

Two of the nine people have been repatriated, Phuc said, adding that Vietnamese agencies are working with the Korean side to find the seven remainders to deport them to Vietnam.

Ministry pledges to learn from mistakes after nine Vietnamese abscond in S.Korea

NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan arrives at Gim Hae Airport during her official visit to South Korea on December 4, 2018. Nine Vietnamese, traveling to the country as part of an economic delegation on a special aircraft carrying the NA chairwoman, absconded.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment has pledged to learn from its mistakes and will strictly discipline any State employees involved in the disappearance of nine Vietnamese in South Korea during an official visit of the Vietnamese National Assembly (NA) delegation to the country last year.

The nine people had traveled to South Korea as part of an economic delegation on a special aircraft carrying Vietnamese NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan on December 4, 2018, and were scheduled to leave on December 7, 2018. Instead, they went missing in the country.

The ministry said in a press release issued today, September 26, that it will learn from the incident and adopt more stringent measures when organizing investment promotion events overseas in the coming period.

It has directed the Foreign Investment Agency, which was responsible for arranging the trip, to review and learn from its mistakes.

The selection, checking, shortlisting and management of the economic delegation had been conducted carefully and had gathered feedback from the relevant agencies. This did not prevent some people from taking advantage of the trip to abscond and stay illegally in South Korea, the ministry stated.

The ministry has pledged to team up with the relevant agencies to search for the fugitives to return them to Vietnam and discipline them in line with prevailing regulations.

Any State employees connected with their disappearance will be subject to punitive measures, the ministry added./. VNA/SGT/VNN