HÀ NỘI – President Trần Đại Quang hailed the visit to Việt Nam 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 co-operative partnership and legislative co-operation, during a meeting in Hà Nội yesterday.

He said Việt Nam wished to further strengthen the strategic co-operative partnership with the RoK for the benefit of the two peoples. In keeping with this 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 Việt Nam was ready to effectively implement the free trade agreement with the RoK and would strive to raise two-way trade to US$70 billion, or even $100 billion by 2020 by facilitating RoK investments in Việt Nam, particularly in infrastructure, renewable energy and high technology.

He expected that the RoK would import more Vietnamese products such as agro-forestry-fisheries to reduce the trade deficit, and help the country join its global supply chain, improve technology transfers as well as develop the support industry.

The President expressed the wish for the RoK to continue assisting Việt Nam’s access to loans from the World Bank’s International Development Association over the coming years.

While asking for collaboration in celebrating the 25th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties, the State leader requested increasing cultural, education, and tourism links while effectively implementing a memorandum of understanding on labour co-operation 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 Việt Nam 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 2017-21 tenure.

Chung, for his part, informed the host of the outcomes of his talks with National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân, 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 Việt Nam.

According to him, nearly 500,000 Korean enterprises are operating in Việt Nam so the RoK hopes to receive support for several of 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 Việt Nam’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 are living in Việt Nam. — VNS