At the talks (Source: VNA)

President of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Park Geun-hye has reiterated that the RoK considers Vietnam as the top partner in its policy of official development assistance (ODA), pledging priority to infrastructure, green growth and human resources projects in Vietnam.

The President made the commitment during talks with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on December 10, as the Vietnamese PM is in the RoK for a working visit and also to attend the commemorative summit marking 25 years of the ASEAN-RoK dialogue relations.

Both leaders agreed that the sharing of strategic benefits and political trust between the two countries over recent times has laid an important foundation to further expand and deepen bilateral ties, contributing to peace, stability, cooperation and development in Asia-Pacific.

They agreed to maintain regular high-level visits and contacts and extend coordination between ministries and agencies while effectively implementing dialogue mechanisms in the fields of diplomacy, national defence and security, especially in defence industry, training, trans-national crime prevention and anti-terrorism.

The two leaders were rejoiced at the conclusion of negotiations on the bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), hailing it an important event in bilateral ties which will not only help increase two-way trade to 70 billion USD by 2020 but also lift the strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries to a new height.

Speaking highly of the RoK’s coordination to improve trade imbalance between the two nations, PM Nguyen Tan Dung asked the RoK government to encourage both big corporations and small- and medium-sized enterprises to invest in Vietnam, especially in hi-tech, support industry, electronics, manufacturing and processing industry, energy and infrastructure development in industrial zones.

The PM also appealed to the RoK for more policies to assist the Vietnamese community in the RoK.

President Park Geun-hye, for her part, promised to consider extending a special memorandum of understanding on labour cooperation between the two countries which, she said, will benefit both sides.

Both host and guest concurred that the maintenance of peace, stability, security, maritime and aviation safety in the East Sea is the common interest of countries in and outside the region, and voiced support of ASEAN and China in seriously abiding by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, towards the early finalisation of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea.

Turning to regional and global issues of shared concern, they expressed pleasure at the strong development of the ASEAN – RoK strategic partnership and agreed to work closely together at ASEAN cooperative mechanisms and other multilateral forums.

After the talks, they witnessed the signing of a document on concluding the Vietnam-RoK FTA negotiations.

Source: vietnam +