Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue (Photo: VNA) Onthis occasion, the Vietnam News Agency’s resident reporter in Seoul interviewed Speaker of the Korean NA Park Byeong-seug. The following the full text of the interview.
Reporter: Next year, Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) will celebrate the30th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Would you please assess theeffectiveness of the Vietnam-RoK cooperation over the past years? Through theofficial visit to the RoK of H.E. Vuong Dinh Hue, Chairman of the NationalAssembly of Vietnam, what prospects can it open to bilateral relations in thenear future?
Speaker: Before we begin, I would like to point out that I have so far declinedall interview requests from many foreign news agencies until your request. Thisis my first interview with a foreign news agency. This shows how much Vietnammeans to us.
Speaker of the Korean NA Park Byeong-seug in the interview with the Vietnam News Agency's reporter.(Photo: VNA) I am eagerly looking forward to meeting with His Excellency Chairman Vuong DinhHue. As a matter of fact, I have had a couple of direct and indirect meetingswith him. Last year, I had a video conference with him. We also met and sharedour views at the World Conference of Speakers of Parliament held in Vienna.From these encounters, I have a very positive impression that he is a person ofstrong determination to follow up on our discussions and move things forward.This made me trust him instantly and hope that we could be friends.
His visit will deepen our bilateral relations on multiple levels: between Headsof State, Speakers, and parliamentarians. During this meeting, I will discussissues that require our joint efforts in the region, such as economic matters,human exchanges, and the current international political developmentssurrounding the Korean Peninsula as well as our cooperation on the globalstage. I am very much looking forward to meeting him again. I would like him toknow that we are making our best efforts to ensure a successful visit. Usingthis opportunity, I would also like to extend my best wishes to former ChairwomanNguyen Thi Kim Ngan.
Speaker of the Korean NA Park Byeong-seug and then NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan during the former's visit to Vietnam in November 2020. (Photo: VNA)
Reporter: How do you view the parliamentarian cooperation between Vietnam and theRoK?
Speaker: First, Vietnam is a pivot country in our New Southern Policy. It is avery important strategic cooperative partner for us. This meeting will give usan opportunity to discuss how to elevate our strategic cooperative partnershipto a comprehensive strategic partnership next year, which marks the 30thanniversary of our diplomatic ties. Our parliaments will also discuss issuesthat hamper logistics and human exchanges between our two nations, how toovercome these hurdles, and how to institutionalize what our governments haveagreed to from a big-picture perspective. In terms of exchanges at the level ofparliamentary leaders, I visited the Chairman of the Vietnamese NationalAssembly last year, and now His Excellency Mr. Hue is visiting us. The membersof our parliaments even had a soccer match once. We have a plan to continue toboost our parliamentary friendship programme. It is in this context that wehave appointed a senior parliamentary member to chair our Korea-VietnamParliamentary Friendship Group.
We are in a very solid relationship, as our parliamentary leaders visit eachother almost every year. For me, Vietnam is the only Asian country that I havevisited since taking office as the Speaker. During my visit to your nation lastyear, I was told that I was the first foreign parliamentary leader to visitVietnam since the COVID-19 outbreak. I believe that we parliamentarians canopenly exchange views on the topics that both governments may feel aredifficult to talk about. We sometimes can pull our governments forward and evensupport what they do. In this sense, the role and commitment of the parliamentis really critical. This is why we appointed a senior NA member of our party toserve as the chair of our Korea-Vietnam Parliamentary Friendship Group. I hopethat the parliamentarians of our two nations will continue to build closecooperative relations down the road.
Speaker: First, Vietnam is a pivot country in our New Southern Policy. It is avery important strategic cooperative partner for us. This meeting will give usan opportunity to discuss how to elevate our strategic cooperative partnershipto a comprehensive strategic partnership next year, which marks the 30thanniversary of our diplomatic ties. Our parliaments will also discuss issuesthat hamper logistics and human exchanges between our two nations, how toovercome these hurdles, and how to institutionalize what our governments haveagreed to from a big-picture perspective. In terms of exchanges at the level ofparliamentary leaders, I visited the Chairman of the Vietnamese NationalAssembly last year, and now His Excellency Mr. Hue is visiting us. The membersof our parliaments even had a soccer match once. We have a plan to continue toboost our parliamentary friendship programme. It is in this context that wehave appointed a senior parliamentary member to chair our Korea-VietnamParliamentary Friendship Group.
We are in a very solid relationship, as our parliamentary leaders visit eachother almost every year. For me, Vietnam is the only Asian country that I havevisited since taking office as the Speaker. During my visit to your nation lastyear, I was told that I was the first foreign parliamentary leader to visitVietnam since the COVID-19 outbreak. I believe that we parliamentarians canopenly exchange views on the topics that both governments may feel aredifficult to talk about. We sometimes can pull our governments forward and evensupport what they do. In this sense, the role and commitment of the parliamentis really critical. This is why we appointed a senior NA member of our party toserve as the chair of our Korea-Vietnam Parliamentary Friendship Group. I hopethat the parliamentarians of our two nations will continue to build closecooperative relations down the road.
A factory of Samsung Vietnam (Photo: Yonhaps News) Speaker: As of now, around 8,000 Korean companies have entered the Vietnamesemarket, hiring over 1 million Vietnamese workers locally. Our nations have seta goal of expanding our trade volume to 100 billion USD by 2023. To make thishappen, the following two things should be done. First, we need to move people,I mean the required workforce, across our borders more freely. In other words,we need to ensure the free flow of workforce required for us to invest in andtrade with each other. Second, we need to brace for unexpected factors toensure stability in the global value chain, I mean the supply chains. Only afew months ago, one of our industries was hit hard because of the lack of asingle industrial material. The RoK and Vietnam share one challenge inparticular: how to expand and solidify our supply chains amid the US-Chinarivalry. I will discuss such issues during our upcoming meeting.
As you know well, the RoK is home to some 200,000 Vietnamese people, whileroughly 180,000 Koreans also live in Vietnam. Moreover, we have more than60,000 Korean-Vietnamese married couples. So, I think that we will discuss howwe can care for and support these couples.
I would also like to talk about one more thing. When I visited Vietnam lastyear, Vietnamese leaders asked me to accept more Vietnamese under ourEmployment Permit System and raise the quota so that more Vietnamese can workin the RoK. They also told me that their workforce could not enter the RoK dueto the COVID-19 pandemic, asking me to allow them to enter our nation. Aftercoming back to the RoK, I was able to raise the quota by a remarkable 70 percentor so and took follow-up actions to let Vietnamese workers enter the RoK firstamong other foreign workforces.
Reporter: To strengthen the role of the parliament, the Vietnamese NationalAssembly has put the promotion of the digital economy, women, peace, security,and cooperation in a post-COVID-19 world on its agenda. Do you think that thesetopics are needed for the Asia-Pacific region?
Speaker: I believe that they are very timely topics and clearly demonstratewhat keen eyes Vietnamese leaders have to see through the fundamental issues ofour region. First, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have to tackletwo challenges: how to overcome this crisis and how to design our post-COVID-19future. Issues like digital transformation and women’s engagement are veryimportant in this respect. Our nation is drafting our strategies to overcomethis crisis with digital transformation and the Green New Deal, which meansgreen growth. Given this, we can see that our two nations have much in common.
Women, security, and peace were stressed by the Vietnamese parliamentariansduring the APPF meeting held in Hanoi three years ago. Three years later, theseissues have finally made it to the agenda. Including the four topics suggestedby your country, we are going to announce a total of 13 resolutions. Amongthem, the topic of women, in particular, gender equality and women’s socialparticipation, are truly meaningful because they were the common items proposedand adopted by our two nations.
Disaster hits the vulnerable first. Even in this COVID-19 pandemic, the leasteconomically developed nations, women, non-regular workers, and other groups inneed are hit first and hardest. When it comes to women, there are issues likehow to help them recover from their job losses and career disruptions. In theRoK, we have a subsidy programme for companies that hire these women. Ipersonally believe that gender equality is a very critical and timely issuewhen we gear up to overcome this crisis and design a post-COVID-19 future byincreasing their representation and engagement, creating jobs for them, helpingthem get back on their career path after career disruptions, and giving themmore opportunities./.
VNA
