Both sides agreed that they boast major potential to further expand their economic and trade ties to match their sound political relations.
Sharing similarities in consumer interests, having a complementary goods structure, and being members of many joint free trade agreements, Vietnam and the RoK have seen increasingly tight links in the global value chain, they noted.
Believing that COVID-19 is likely to remain a complex issue and create difficulties in bilateral economic and trade ties, Dien and the ambassador sought measures to promote trade, industrial, and energy cooperation between the two sides in the future.
They agreed to continue working closely together and to optimise the efficiency of existing bilateral cooperation mechanisms to reach specific goals, including in COVID-19 prevention and control, while implementing action plans to realise the target of 100 billion USD in two-way trade by 2023.
Both sides will strengthen links in the Vietnam-RoK supply chain while fostering cooperation in energy, strengthening the operations of the Vietnam-RoK Centre for Consultation and Technology Solutions, and organising regular dialogues between the Ministry of Industry and Trade and RoK enterprises.
Dien shared the difficulties facing RoK-funded projects amid COVID-19, including those related to the entry of experts and high-quality human resources into Vietnam, especially in projects in Bac Giang, Bac Ninh, Vinh Phuc and Thai Nguyen provinces.
He underlined that these difficulties are only temporary and that the localities will promptly bring COVID-19 under control.
He asked for support from RoK enterprises for Vietnam’s measures in COVID-19 prevention and control, to avoid the spread of the virus in the community.
In order to ensure safe and continued production at foreign firms and those from the RoK, Dien asked the ambassador as well as the Samsung Group and the SK Group, which have signed agreements on COVID-19 vaccine production in the RoK with the Moderna and Novanax Groups, to assist Vietnam in accessing vaccine sources so the country can reach its goal of conducting large-scale vaccinations, especially among workers at companies in industrial parks, including those from the RoK.
For his part, Ambassador Park Noh-wan and representatives from RoK firms affirmed that they will try to provide Vietnam with better access to COVID-19 vaccines, helping the country implement its “dual targets” of protecting people’s health and speeding up socio-economic development and recovery in the “new normal”.
According to figures from the Asian-African Market Department, in the first four months of 2021, two-way trade between Vietnam and the RoK hit 23.7 billion USD, up 15 percent year-on-year, with Vietnam’s exports of 7.1 billion USD being a year-on-year increase of 14.3 percent. Vietnam posted a trade deficit of about 9.5 billion USD with the RoK in the period, up 9.3 percent over the same period last year.
Source: VNA