Hanoi children welcome RoK President Moon Jae-in to Vietnam (Source: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) issued ajoint statement on the occasion of RoK President Moon Jae-in’s State visit toVietnam from March 22-24.
The statement noted that during his visit, President Moon Jae-in heldtalks with his Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang and had meetings withGeneral Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee NguyenPhu Trong, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, National Assembly Chairwoman NguyenThi Kim Ngan.
The senior leaders of the two countries discussed orientations topromote the Vietnam-RoK comprehensive strategic partnership, and exchangedideas on regional and international issues of mutual concern.
They lauded the strong development of bilateral ties in all fields after25 years of setting up diplomatic relations, noting that the two countries havebecome each other’s leading important partner.
The RoK is currently Vietnam’s largest foreign investor, second biggest tradepartner and ODA provider. Meanwhile, Vietnam is the fourth largest tradepartner of the RoK. The two sides have witnessed fruitful cooperation in thefields of manufacturing, energy, culture, education, tourism and labour.
The leaders held that the development of bilateral ties has benefitedpeople of both countries and contributed to peace, stability, prosperity in theregion and the world. They promised to further elevate the Vietnam-RoKcomprehensive strategic partnership in the future.
President Moon introduced the RoK Government’s “New Southern Policy,”stressing that within this framework, the RoK will focus on developingrelations with Vietnam – an important country in the Association of SoutheastAsian Nations (ASEAN).
President Quang applauded the “New Southern Policy,” affirming thatVietnam, as the focal partner of the policy, is willing to play an active rolein fostering the ASEAN-RoK relations.
The two sides agreed to increase high-level meetings and exchangesthough channels such as the governments, localities, parliaments, politicalparties, organisations and social classes, thus reinforcing the firm foundationfor the development of the bilateral cooperative strategic partnership.
They agreed to enhance cooperation in security, defence and defenceindustry. The leaders agreed to soon adopt a statement on joint vision ondefence cooperation between the two Defence Ministries, while improving win-winpartnership in defence industry.
In order to promote relations between the future generations, theleaders agreed to encourage exchanges among young people of the two countries,while designing support policies for women and children of over 60,000multicultural Vietnamese-RoK families, making them bridges for the bilateralfriendship.
In terms of education, the leaders noted the significance of educationcooperation in boosting socio-economic and cultural partnership, agreeing tocontinue expanding the scale of coordination in the field. Besides, they willspeed up the formation of a Vietnamese study faculty and the teaching ofVietnamese language in the RoK as well as the teaching of Korean in Vietnam.They will also create optimal conditions for the regular and effectiveorganization of the Vietnam-RoK Human Resources Forum.
The senior leaders noted that theenhanced culture and art exchanges help promote mutual understanding and friendshipbetween their people, agreeing to make joint efforts to further foster cultureand art exchanges and sport cooperation between the two nations.
Regarding tourism cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, they said bilateraltourism collaboration and people-to-people exchanges between the two countrieshave recorded strong development. They agreed to boost cooperation and facilitatepeople-to-people exchanges and tourism cooperation, and ensure security andsafety for the two countries’ visitors.
The leaders proposed measures to enhance social welfare and ensure health care,thus improving the quality of lives of the people; agreed to expand win-win cooperationin terms of health care and pharmaceuticals, and boost cooperation in sharingexperience and support social welfare development, contributing to betteringthe life quality of the two countries’ people.
For investment cooperation, the leaders agreed to encourage investmentcooperation, especially in supporting industry, electronics, energy,hi-technology, modern agriculture, infrastructure development, smart urbanbuilding, industrial parks, startup and innovation, towards sustainable growthin the future. Vietnam welcomes RoK enterprises’ investment in large-scale infrastructureand energy development projects as well as the RoK’s interest in equitisationof State-owned enterprises and restructuring of commercial banks.
They agreed to work actively on theamendments to the agreement on avoidance of double taxation, soon complete negotiations for the signingof the Social Insurance Agreement between Vietnamand the RoK. They also agreed to enhance financial technology cooperation, makingit easy for their financial firms to access each other’s market in line with thetwo countries’ legal regulations; and boost civil and commercial justice cooperation.
The two sides agreed to expand trade ties in a balanced and sustainable manner,towards lifting two-way trade to 100 billion USD by 2020. They agreed to applymeasures and implement mechanisms to balance bilateral trade; and accelerate theprocesses of evaluation, testing, technology support for production andprocessing, distribution and consumption in order to increase the value of Vietnam’sagro-aquatic products and processed foods. The two countries will also make jointefforts to accelerate negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive EconomicPartnership (RCEP) agreement in 2018, towards expanding free trade networks inthe region.
The Vietnamese leader appreciated the RoK’s official development assistance(ODA) provision for Vietnam, which has significantly contributed to Vietnam’ssocio-economic development. He hoped the development cooperation betweenVietnam and the RoK will be enhanced in the coming time. President Moon Jae-inaffirmed Vietnam is the biggest development cooperation partner of the RoK,promising to continue the development cooperation, thus practically helping to realiseVietnam’s industrialization and modernization goals.
They also agreed to makejoint efforts in training Vietnamese personnel in the spheres of science andtechnology to effectively serve the implementation of the Vietnam-Korea Instituteof Science and Technology (V-KIST) project.
The two sides held that environmental cooperationbetween the two countries has contributed to implementing sustainabledevelopment goals in each nation, agreeing to promote comprehensive cooperationin protecting the environment and nature through cooperative mechanisms, includingthe Vietnam-RoK Environment Ministers’ Meeting.
The leaders agreed to foster cooperation in science-technology and modern communicationsin line with each country’s sustainable development strategy and the new internationaleconomic environment, especially the 4.0 industrial revolution, thus creatingnew momentum for cooperation between their ministries, sectors and localities.
For manufacturing cooperation, they agreed to improve the quality and efficiencyof manufacturing cooperation by accelerating the transfer of technologies insupporting industry, automobile, mechanics, textiles and electronics; and supportingVietnamese enterprises in joining the global production chain.
The leaders appreciated RoK firms’ participation in developing power plants, whichcontributes to the development of Vietnam’s electricity industry. They agreedto boost links in the fields of renewable energy, energy saving and energy safety.
Regarding agricultural cooperation, the leaders affirmed the importance of theagricultural sector in the national economy; agreed to expand cooperation inagricultural and rural technology via technical assistance programmes/projects,enhancing involved staff capability, making efforts for the rice industry’sdevelopment, and improving the business environment for agricultural and foodenterprises.
Thetwo sides welcomed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) betweenVietnam’s Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs and RoK’sMinistry of Labour and Employment on sending and receiving labourers to work inthe RoK; agreed to effectively implement the MoU, thus benefiting both sides.
Theleaders welcomed the signing of MoUs on infrastructure and transportcooperation, urban construction and development; agreed to promote the role ofthe Vietnam – RoK centre for transport cooperation, expansion of cooperation insmart traffic infrastructure, information and experience sharing among governmentalbodies and enterprises of the two nations, such as experiences in building theGyeongbu highway and Incheon airport.
On regionaland international cooperation, the leaders shared a view on enhancingcooperation in regional and international issues of common concern as well asat multilateral forums, such as the United Nations (UN), the World TradeOrganisation (WTO), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-RoK, the Mekong-RoK Cooperation;agreed to closely coordinate with each other to address global challenges,non-traditional security issues, energy security, food security; increasingcapability to jointly address emergency situations, and mutually supporting foreach other’s candidacy in international organisations.
Theyunderlined the importance of peace, safety and freedom of navigation,and emphasized the need to peacefully settle related disputes in accordancewith international law, to effectively and comprehensively implement the Declaration onthe Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and to accelerate the the signing ofthe Code of Conduct (COC) in the East Sea. Vietnam welcomed and supportedthe RoK government’s efforts to peacefully deal with the Democratic People’sRepublic of Korea’s nuclear issue and promote inter-Korean dialogue.
The leaderswitnessed the signing of a MoU on the action programme for trade cooperation inthe 2018-2020 period to realise the target of 100 billion USD in two-way tradeas well as MoUs on supporting industry cooperation, infrastructure andtransport, urban construction and development, the 4.0 industry revolution,labour cooperation, among others.
They heldthat the State visit to Vietnam by RoK President Moon Jae-in is a success, whichcontributes significantly to fostering friendship and cooperative ties betweenthe two nations as well as promoting peace, stability, and prosperity in theregion and the world.-VNA
VNA
