The festival, to be jointly held by the Department of Foreign Affairs and other relevant departments, agencies and the RoK Consulate General in Da Nang, is expected to promote and deepen the friendship between the Vietnamese city and Korean localities.

It will include traditional art performances staged by Korean artists, 60 booths introducing the culture, products, cuisines and folk games of both countries, a culinary contest and a film screening.

The Vietnam-RoK relationship was upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2022. The RoK now ranks first in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam with 9,500 projects and combined registered capital off more than 80 billion USD.

The two countries are striving to raise their bilateral trade revenue to 100 billion USD this year, and 150 billion USD by 2030.

The RoK is also the second biggest source of tourists to Vietnam. Other fields like culture and sports have also contributed to bringing people of the two countries closer.

Particularly, Da Nang has set up friendship and official cooperation with five Korean localities, namely Changwon (in 1997), Daegu (in 2004), Hwaseong (in 2008), Seoul (in 2016) and Jeju (in 2023), covering the areas of tourism, training, cultural exchange and experience sharing in green transport and smart city building.

As of the second quarter of this year, Da Nang attracted 268 Korean projects valued at 362 million USD.

The city welcomed more than 1.8 million visitors from the RoK in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out./.VNA