Top legislator to pay official visit to RoK

NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan

The visit will be made at the invitation of Speaker of the RoK National Assembly Moon Hee-sang, the NA Committee for External Affairs said in a statement.

Viet Nam and the RoK established diplomatic ties on December 22, 1992. They set up their comprehensive strategic partnership in August 2001, and lifted the ties to a strategic cooperative partnership in October 2009.

The bilateral political and diplomatic relations have been stepped up, reflected through regular high-level visits and meetings.

In 2006, an agreement on cooperation between the two legislatures was signed, an important legal document for both sides to develop their friendship and cooperation.

The nations also established important security-defense cooperation mechanisms, including a security dialogue and defense dialogue at the deputy ministerial level.

The RoK is currently one of Viet Nam’s most important economic partners, ranking first in terms of investment, and second in development cooperation, trade and tourism.

Two-way trade turnover grew from US$ 500 million in 1992 to US$ 61.5 billion in 2017. The two countries target to raise the turnover to US$ 100 billion by 2020.

The RoK is the second largest ODA provider for Viet Nam (after Japan) by offering US$ 1.2 billion from the Economic Development Co-operation Fund (EDCF) in the 2012-2015 period and US$ 1.5 billion in the 1016-2020 period in three fields namely green growth, infrastructure, and human development.

The RoK emerges as a key tourism market for Viet Nam. Last year, 2.5 million Korean tourists travelled to Viet Nam, representing a year-on-year growth of 56%. Meanwhile, the RoK welcomed 325,000 Vietnamese guests, up 29% against 2016. In the first ten months of 2018, 2.8 million Korean guests arrived in Viet Nam./. 

By Kim Loan