Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh and Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Paik Un-gyu sought measures to complete the two countries’ trade goal of 100 billion USD by 2020 during their talks in Hanoi on March 22.

The signing of cooperation deals between the businesses of Vietnam and the RoK

The ministers recognized the impressive growth in two-way trade in 2017 and the first two months of 2018, holding that this was the results of fruitful cooperation between the two ministries in implementing the directions issued by the two countries’ leaders.

They agreed on the need to continue working closely in building joint action programmes in industry, trade and energy while coordinating in designing and carrying out effective policies and measures to promote bilateral economic and trade partnership.

The ministers concurred to work together in setting up a four-party cooperation mechanism between their ministries and the ministries of agriculture to create favourable conditions for affiliation in trading of farm products, especially the export of farm products of Vietnam to the RoK to reduce the Southeast Asian country’s trade deficit with the RoK.

At the same time, the RoK will also continue supporting Vietnam in developing the support industry share its experience in investment and development policies in the industry, especially for sectors of Vietnam’s interests like automobiles, electronics, garments and textiles, and footwear.

The two sides will strengthen cooperation in power, energy safety, power saving, and climate change response and put it in cooperative documents to be signed during this occasion.

The RoK will continue assisting Vietnam to train high-quality human resources for industry, oil and gas, and renewable energy.

They will expand cooperation in trade defence in the context that the two sides are integrating deeply into the world and facing many defence measures from other countries.

Following the talks, the two ministers witnessed the signing of five documents between the two ministries, along with 10 deals between enterprises of both sides.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, trade between Vietnam and the RoK jumped from 500 million USD in 1992 to 61.5 billion USD in 2017, making the RoK the second largest trader of Vietnam after China.

The RoK is now the fourth largest market and second biggest importer of Vietnam.

The country mostly bought Vietnamese garment and textile products, telephones and spare parts, electronics, aquatic products, wood and wooden products, machines, equipment, footwear, transport vehicles, and fabrics.

Meanwhile, Vietnam imported from the RoK cell-phone and computer spare parts, electronic products, fabrics, machines, equipment, chemicals and fertilizers.

In 2017, two-way trade reached 61.5 billion USD, up 41 percent year on year, including Vietnam’s exports of 14.8 billion USD, a rise of 30 percent over 2016 and its imports of 46.7 billion USD, up 45.3 percent year on year.

In the first two months of 2018, Vietnam earned 2.8 million USD in the RoK market, a surge of 45.6 percent over the same time last year.-VNA