Lima (VNA) – Vietnam’s State President Luong Cuong met his counterpart from the Republic of Korea (RoK) Yoon Suk Yeol on the sidelines of the 2024 APEC Economic Leaders' Week in Lima, Peru, on November 16 (local time).

The two leaders expressed their delight at the robust development of the Vietnam-RoK relations, which are at their best to date, especially following the elevation of the bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

Cuong affirmed that Vietnam always attaches importance to its relationship with the RoK, saying the two countries have become reliable, effective, and pragmatic partners across a wide range of areas, including politics, economy, trade, culture, and people-to-people exchange.

He conveyed the warm regards from Party General Secretary To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man to Yoon and other leaders of the RoK.

For his part, Yoon congratulated Cuong on his new role, stressing that Vietnam remains a key partner of the RoK in advancing the ASEAN-RoK Solidarity Initiative and the RoK’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.

With regard to future cooperation, the two leaders agreed to maintain regular exchange of delegations and high-level contacts, share updates on domestic developments as well as views on international and regional issues of mutual concern. They pledged to continue fostering economic cooperation, aiming to achieve a bilateral trade volume of 100 billion USD in the near term and 150 billion USD by 2030 in a more balanced fashion.

The RoK agreed to prioritise support for Vietnam in key areas, including training high-quality human resources, establishing R&D centres, transferring technology, and helping Vietnamese businesses integrate more deeply into global supply chains led by Korean groups.

The RoK will provide ODA for Vietnam with larger scales and preferential terms to invest in projects on strategic infrastructure, climate change response, green transition, and energy transformation.

The two sides consented to collaborate closely in international and regional issues of shared concern and to support each other’s candidacies at multilateral cooperation mechanisms and international organisations.

For the East Sea issue, they underscored the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and overflight, resolving disputes through peaceful means, and in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

🍃 On this occasion, Cuong invited Yoon to visit Vietnam and expressed his appreciation for the latter’s invitation to visit the RoK at an appropriate time. The two agreed to arrange these visits through diplomatic channels./.