At the invitation of the speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea Moon Hee-sang, Chairwoman of the National Assembly of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and a high-level delegation of the National Assembly of Vietnam will pay an official visit to South Korea from December 4-7, 2018. This visit to Korea by the Chairwoman of the National Assembly of Vietnam occurs as the two countries celebrate their ten-year anniversary of the establishment of the “Vietnam - Korea strategic cooperative partnership” (2009-2019), and their cooperative relations are enjoying a marked development, garnering many achievements in all areas, contributing to the general prosperity of the region and the world.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations on December 22, 1992, the relations between Vietnam and the Korea has prospered magnificently and rapidly in every category for the benefit of the people of both countries. In politics and diplomacy: the two countries upgraded their relations to a “comprehensive cooperative partnership” in 2003, and a “strategic cooperative partnership” in 2009.
Currently, Korea continues to appreciate the relations with Vietnam and highly regard the latter’s central role in ASEAN; the two countries maintain regular diplomatic visits, most notably President of Korea Moon Jae-in’s official visit to Vietnam to attend the APEC inter-governmental forum in Da Nang in November 2017, and state visit to Vietnam in March 2018. The cooperative partnership between both countries’ National Assembly has also been strengthened and developed on both bilateral and multilateral levels. Both sides actively implement the cooperative agreement between the two countries' National Assembly (signed in 2013); promote the exchange of delegations at all levels and of the Parliamentary Friendship Association in order to guarantee cooperation and the exchange of administrative experience; closely coordinate, strengthen mutual support in international parliamentary forums.
Political understanding and trust have helped to promote a rapidly developing and stable cooperative economic partnership, attaining a range of impressive achievements. The Republic of Korea is one of the most important partners in Vietnam; currently Korea is the top investor in Vietnam with total investment capital reaching US$62.12 billion as of October 2018; ranks second in ODA aid for Vietnam (after Japan), and tourism and commerce (after China).
Conversely, Vietnam is Korea's third largest export market, behind only China and the United States, and is forecasted to surpass the U.S., becoming Korea's second largest export market by 2020. Bilateral trade turn-over has steadily and rapidly increased to US$61.5 billion in 2017, which is 117 times the initial amount of US$0.5 billion in 1992. In the first ten months of 2018, the trade turnover between the two countries reached US$55.45 billion. With the current growth rate, the trade turnover between Vietnam and Korea can very well reach US$100 billion by 2020, which the leaders of the two countries have pledged to attain.
Cooperative activities in the field of culture and the exchange of citizen occur extensively. Approximately 191,000 Vietnamese are currently living, studying, working, visiting relatives in Korea, and there are more than 150,000 Korean expatriates residing in Vietnam. The Vietnamese community in Korea and the Korean community in Vietnam are an important force, contributing to the cordial relations between the two countries. In addition, with more than 70,000 Vietnamese brides married to Korean husbands, the two countries' relations have become more intimate and can even be considered "in-law” relations.
Dr. Kim Hyun-jae, Director of Vietnam research institute at Youngsan University, Korea
(sacredchoe@naver.com)
