He said Vietnam wishes to further strengthen the strategic cooperative partnership with the RoK for the benefit of the two peoples. In such 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.
President Tran Dai Quang (R) and Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea Chung Sye-kyun
Discussing measures to improve the efficiency of bilateral economic-trade-investment links, Quang affirmed that Vietnam is ready to effectively implement the free trade agreement with the RoK and will strive to raise two-way trade to 70 billion USD, or even 100 billion USD by 2020 by facilitating RoK investments in Vietnam, particularly in infrastructure, renewable energy and high technology.
Vietnam expects that the RoK will import more Vietnamese products such as agro-forestry-fisheries to reduce trade deficit, and help the country join its global supply chain, get technology transfer as well as develop the support industry, he said.
The President expressed wishes for the RoK to continue assisting Vietnam’s access to loans from the World Bank’s International Development Association in the following years.
While asking for joint work to celebrate the 25th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties, the State leader requested increasing cultural, education, tourism links while effectively implementing a memorandum of understanding on labour cooperation 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 Vietnam 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 2017-2021 tenure.
Chung, for his part, informed the host of the outcomes of his talks with National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, 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 Vietnam.
According to him, nearly 500,000 Korean enterprises are operating in Vietnam so that the RoK hopes to receive support for several o 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 Vietnam’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 is living in Vietnam.
Source: VNA