Deputy Prime Minister Lê Minh Khái (R) and Chairman of the NACF Lee Sung-hee. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The successful experience of the "New Village Movement" in the Republic of Korea (RoK) is being applied in some Vietnamese localities through the Haeng Bok (Happy) Programme funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Deputy Prime Minister Lê Minh Khái has said.

During a reception for Lee Sung-hee, Chairman of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (NACF) of the RoK, in Hà Nội on Monday, Khái said Việt Nam had received active support and close cooperation from the RoK government in agricultural and rural development.

As a country with a strong agricultural foundation, Việt Nam wanted to learn from the experience of other countries, including the RoK, thus applying good practices in this scheme, he said.

In the process of industrialisation and modernisation, the Vietnamese Party and the State had always focused on developing agriculture and improving the lives of farmers, considering these an important foundation for sustainable socio-economic development, Khái noted.

He expressed his hope that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation signed recently between the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance (VCA) and the NACF, would contribute to developing agricultural cooperatives and increasing incomes for farmers in both countries.

Established in 1961, the NACF played an important role in promoting the "New Village Movement" in the RoK in the 1960s, contributing to changing the face of the countryside and improving the lives of Korean people. The movement has become a "brand" and symbol of the great development process of the East Asian nation.

Khái showed his belief that the NACF would actively coordinate with the Vietnamese Government to support the development of agriculture and rural areas, contributing to Việt Nam’s socio-economic development.

For his part, Lee said that the signing of the MoU between the NACF and the VCA would create a basis for cooperation between the two nations in terms of cooperative development, thus helping the two countries make new strides in agricultural development.

The RoK is currently the biggest foreign investor in Việt Nam. The country ranks second in development cooperation, tourism and labour partnership with Việt Nam, and remains the third largest trade partner of the Southeast Asian nation.

The two sides have also witnessed strong development in people-to-people exchanges, with over 200,000 expatriates from each country living, studying, and working in the other country, including about 80,000 Vietnamese-Korean multicultural families. — VNS