Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam is seen as a gateway for businesses from theRepublic of Korea (RoK) to enter the ASEAN market, said experts at a forum inHanoi on December 3.

The forum on the RoK’s New Southern Policy and the importance of RoK-Vietnamrelations was co-organised by the National Centre for Socio-economic Informationand Forecasting (NCIF) and the Korean Institute for International EconomicPolicy (KIEP).

In his opening speech, Dr. Tran Hong Quang, NCIF Director, said over the pastthree decades, Vietnam-RoK relations have seen fine developments in all fields.At present, the RoK is one of the two largest foreign investors in Vietnam withaccumulated capital of 57.6 billion USD by the end of 2017. Vietnam is also thefourth largest investment destination and the biggest aid recipient of the RoK.

The RoK is the second largest trade partner of Vietnam, with two way tradeincreasing 117 times since 1992, when the two nations set up their diplomaticties, hitting 61.5 billion USD last year.

The two countries have also seen positive collaboration in labour, culture andtourism.

By the end of 2017, the Vietnamese community in the RoK numbered 162,000, mostof them are guest workers, those getting married to Koreans, and students.Meanwhile, around 150,000 Koreans, mostly businesspeople, are living in the SoutheastAsian nation.

“Vietnam always attaches importance to and wishes to deepen the strategic cooperativepartnership with the RoK, which gives high priority to collaboration withASEAN, including Vietnam,” said Quang.

Dr. Lee Jae-young, President of KIEP, said the New Southern Policy aims to raisethe RoK’s cooperation and diplomatic relations with ASEAN countries and Indiaon par with those with the US, China, Japan and Russia.

Notably, in its economic relations with ASEAN – a focus of the policy, Vietnamplays a crucial role, accounting for more than half of cooperation in almostall fields such as trade, investment, official development assistance (ODA) andpeople-to-people exchange.

According to Prof. Park Bun-soon from the Korea University, Vietnam is animportant destination for Korean companies.

The RoK’s investment will continue to flow to Vietnam in the future, he said,noting that the country should encourage Korean investment in developing small-and medium-sized enterprises and support industries.

The RoK needs to increase ODA for Vietnam in order to transfer technologies ofits multinational groups while Vietnam should create conditions for RoKinvestors to engage in merger and acquisition (M&A) market, he added.

At the forum, the NCIF and the KIEP signed a memorandum of understanding oncooperation in reality.-VNA