President Tran Dai Quang hailed the Vietnam visit by Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Chung Sye-kyun on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties, as a vivid manifestation of the countries’ strategic cooperative partnership and legislative cooperation, during a reception in Hanoi on April 25. 

President Tran Dai Quang (R) and Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea Chung Sye-kyun

He said Vietnam wishes to further strengthen the strategic cooperative partnership with the RoK for the benefit of the two peoples. In such spirit, he asked Speaker Chung to continue boosting the exchange of delegations and high-level meetings in order to reinforce political trust and extend bilateral links. 

Discussing measures to improve the efficiency of bilateral economic-trade-investment links, Quang affirmed that Vietnam is ready to effectively implement the free trade agreement with the RoK and will strive to raise two-way trade to 70 billion USD, or even 100 billion USD by 2020 by facilitating RoK investments in Vietnam, particularly in infrastructure, renewable energy and high technology. 

Vietnam expects that the RoK will import more Vietnamese products such as agro-forestry-fisheries to reduce trade deficit, and help the country join its global supply chain, get technology transfer as well as develop the support industry, he said.

The President expressed wishes for the RoK to continue assisting Vietnam’s access to loans from the World Bank’s International Development Association in the following years. 

While asking for joint work to celebrate the 25th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties, the State leader requested increasing cultural, education, tourism links while effectively implementing a memorandum of understanding on labour cooperation and helping Vietnamese brides better integrate into the host society. 

On the international arena, the President urged the two nations to enhance mutual support at multilateral forums, especially within the framework of the United Nations, ASEAN, APEC, global and regional inter-parliamentary forums such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly and the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum.

The host asked the RoK to help Vietnam successfully organise the APEC Year 2017, support the country’s run for a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and the UNESCO General Director post for the 2017-2021 tenure. 

Chung, for his part, informed the host of the outcomes of his talks with National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, saying that apart from intensifying economic-trade-investment ties, the two sides agreed to extend their links to education-training, culture, and people-to-people exchange. 

He expressed his belief that more Korean firms would do long-term business in Vietnam. 

According to him, nearly 500,000 Korean enterprises are operating in Vietnam so that the RoK hopes to receive support for several o its credit organisations to open branches here. 

The guest asked for the early signing of a social insurance agreement as well as the Vietnamese State’s support for Korean nationals living in the country.

The RoK is currently Vietnam’s largest partner in terms of foreign direct investment, the second largest partner in terms of the supply of official development assistance and tourism, and the third largest trader. More than 140,000 Vietnamese are living in the RoK and the same number of RoK nationals is living in Vietnam.

Party leader wants more productive partnership with RoK

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (R) and Speaker of the RoK National Assembly Chung Sye-kyun at the reception 

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong wants Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) to ratchet up the efficient cooperation between political parties, governments, parliaments, and localities to achieve more productive strategic cooperative partnership.

He expressed his desire at a reception for visiting Speaker of the National Assembly of the RoK Chung Sye-kyun in Hanoi on April 25.

The Party chief warmly welcomed Speaker Chung’s visit at a time when the two countries are enjoying thriving relations and preparing for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of diplomatic ties, and hoped it will help step up the affiliation between the two law-making bodies.

He gave high estimations to the outcomes of the guest’s talks and meetings during the visit and across-the-board cooperation, in particular economics, trade and investment.

He noted that similar interests, cultural closeness, people’s bonds, and firmly-built social foundation allow the two countries to have huge cooperation potential.

Speaker Chung regarded the robust, healthy and efficient development of bilateral ties over the past 25 years as rare in international relations, saying it stemmed from leaders’ visions and concerted efforts made the two people.  

He spoke highly of Vietnam’s efforts to create favourable conditions for RoK investors and pledged that his country will speed up the transfer of technology to partly support Vietnam’s industrialization and modernization.

He expressed his wish and belief that the countries’ relations will continue thriving qualitatively and quantitatively in the coming time.

Earlier on the day, Speaker Chung held talks with National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and met with President Tran Dai Quang.

He is in a three-day official visit at the invitation of his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, starting from April 24. 

VNA