President of the Republic of Korea Moon Jae-in and his wife arrived in Vietnam's Da Nang international airport to attend APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in November 2017 (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – President of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Moon Jae-inwill pay a state visit to Vietnam from March 22-24, which is expected to be achance for the two countries to further enhance their relations.
Vietnam and the RoK established diplomaticties on December 22, 1992. They set up their comprehensive strategicpartnership in August 2001, and agreed to lift the ties to a strategiccooperative partnership in October 2009.
The bilateral political and diplomaticrelations are strong, which is reflected through regular high-level visits andmeetings.
In 2006, an agreement on cooperation betweenthe two legislatures was signed, an important legal document for both sides todevelop their friendship and cooperation.
The nations also established importantsecurity-defence cooperation mechanisms, including a security dialogue anddefence dialogue at the deputy ministerial level.
In terms of economics, the Vietnam-RoK freetrade agreement, which became effective on December 20, 2015, has opened a newchapter in bilateral economic ties.
The RoK is currently one of Vietnam’s mostimportant economic partners, ranking first in terms of investment, and secondin development cooperation, trade and tourism.
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Two-way trade jumped from 500 million USD in1992 to 61.5 billion USD in 2017, of which 14.8 billion USD came from Vietnam’sexports, up 30 percent from the previous year, and 46.7 billion USD from theSoutheast Asian country’s imports, a year-on-year increase of 45.3 percent.
The two countries are working to raise theturnover to 100 billion USD by 2020.
In terms of foreign direct investment, theRoK ranks first among 125 nations and territories pouring capital into Vietnam,with total registered capital hitting 57.7 billion USD as of late December2017.
The RoK also provided Vietnam with 1.2billion USD in official development assistance for Vietnam in 2012-2015, and a1.5 billion USD loan for the country during 2016-2020.
In agricultural cooperation, it hassupported Vietnam in implementing the new-style rural area model, notably theHappiness Programme carried out in the northern province of Lao Cai and centralQuang Tri province.
The eastern Asia country ranks second in termsof the number of tourists to Vietnam. Last year, Vietnam welcomed more than 2million Korean visitors, a surge of 56.4 percent year-on-year. In January thisyear, 316,300 Korean tourists visited Vietnam, a year-on-year jump of 84percent.
In judicial affairs, cooperation between theSupreme People’s Court of Vietnam and the Supreme Court of the RoK started in2002. The two countries are speeding up negotiations on an agreement on mutualjudicial assistance in civil and trade affairs.
The two countries signed an agreement oncultural cooperation in August 1994, and a memorandum of understanding oncultural, sport and tourism cooperation in October 2008. A Korean CultureCentre was established in Hanoi in 2006. The Vietnamese Ministry of Educationand Training and the RoK Embassy in Vietnam inked a deal on piloting theteaching of Korean language in high schools on February 16, 2016.
Vietnam also signed an agreement onscientific and technological cooperation at the governmental level in 1995.
Currently, there are more than 112,200Vietnamese people living in the Republic of Korea, while about 150,000 Koreansare living in Vietnam.-VNA
VNA
