Vietnam, RoK issue joint statement

The statement noted that during his visit, President Moon Jae-in held talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang and had meetings with General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

The senior leaders of the two countries discussed orientations to promote the Vietnam-RoK comprehensive strategic partnership, and exchanged ideas on regional and international issues of mutual concern.

They lauded the strong development of bilateral ties in all fields after 25 years of setting up diplomatic relations, noting that the two countries have become each other’s leading important partner. 

The RoK is currently Vietnam’s largest foreign investor, second biggest trade partner and ODA provider. Meanwhile, Vietnam is the fourth largest trade partner of the RoK. The two sides have witnessed fruitful cooperation in the fields of manufacturing, energy, culture, education, tourism and labour.

The leaders held that the development of bilateral ties has benefited people of both countries and contributed to peace, stability, prosperity in the region and the world. They promised to further elevate the Vietnam-RoK comprehensive 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 developing relations with Vietnam – an important country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

President Quang applauded the “New Southern Policy,” affirming that Vietnam, as the focal partner of the policy, is willing to play an active role in fostering the ASEAN-RoK relations.

The two sides agreed to increase high-level meetings and exchanges though channels such as the governments, localities, parliaments, political parties, organisations and social classes, thus reinforcing the firm foundation for the development of the bilateral cooperative strategic partnership.

They agreed to enhance cooperation in security, defence and defence industry. The leaders agreed to soon adopt a statement on joint vision on defence cooperation between the two Defence Ministries, while improving win-win partnership in defence industry.

In order to promote relations between the future generations, the leaders agreed to encourage exchanges among young people of the two countries, while designing support policies for women and children of over 60,000 multicultural Vietnamese-RoK families, making them bridges for the bilateral friendship.

In terms of education, the leaders noted the significance of education cooperation in boosting socio-economic and cultural partnership, agreeing to continue expanding the scale of coordination in the field. Besides, they will speed up the formation of a Vietnamese study faculty and the teaching of Vietnamese language in the RoK as well as the teaching of Korean in Vietnam. They will also create optimal conditions for the regular and effective organization of the Vietnam-RoK Human Resources Forum.

The senior leaders noted that the enhanced culture and art exchanges help promote mutual understanding and friendship between their people, agreeing to make joint efforts to further foster culture and art exchanges and sport cooperation between the two nations. 

Regarding tourism cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, they said bilateral tourism collaboration and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries have recorded strong development. They agreed to boost cooperation and facilitate people-to-people exchanges and tourism cooperation, and ensure security and safety 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 cooperation in terms of health care and pharmaceuticals, and boost cooperation in sharing experience and support social welfare development, contributing to bettering the life quality of the two countries’ people. 

For investment cooperation, the leaders agreed to encourage investment cooperation, especially in supporting industry, electronics, energy, hi-technology, modern agriculture, infrastructure development, smart urban building, industrial parks, startup and innovation, towards sustainable growth in the future. Vietnam welcomes RoK enterprises’ investment in large-scale infrastructure and energy development projects as well as the RoK’s interest in equitisation of State-owned enterprises and restructuring of commercial banks. 

They agreed to work actively on the amendments to the agreement on avoidance of double taxation, soon complete negotiations for the signing of the Social Insurance Agreement between Vietnam and the RoK. They also agreed to enhance financial technology cooperation, making it easy for their financial firms to access each other’s market in line with the two 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 apply measures and implement mechanisms to balance bilateral trade; and accelerate the processes of evaluation, testing, technology support for production and processing, distribution and consumption in order to increase the value of Vietnam’s agro-aquatic products and processed foods. The two countries will also make joint efforts to accelerate negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement in 2018, towards expanding free trade networks in the region. 

The Vietnamese leader appreciated the RoK’s official development assistance (ODA) provision for Vietnam, which has significantly contributed to Vietnam’s socio-economic development. He hoped the development cooperation between Vietnam and the RoK will be enhanced in the coming time. President Moon Jae-in affirmed Vietnam is the biggest development cooperation partner of the RoK, promising to continue the development cooperation, thus practically helping to realise Vietnam’s industrialization and modernization goals. 

They also agreed to make joint efforts in training Vietnamese personnel in the spheres of science and technology to effectively serve the implementation of the Vietnam-Korea Institute of Science and Technology (V-KIST) project. 

The two sides held that environmental cooperation between the two countries has contributed to implementing sustainable development goals in each nation, agreeing to promote comprehensive cooperation in protecting the environment and nature through cooperative mechanisms, including the Vietnam-RoK Environment Ministers’ Meeting. 

The leaders agreed to foster cooperation in science-technology and modern communications in line with each country’s sustainable development strategy and the new international economic environment, especially the 4.0 industrial revolution, thus creating new momentum for cooperation between their ministries, sectors and localities. 

For manufacturing cooperation, they agreed to improve the quality and efficiency of manufacturing cooperation by accelerating the transfer of technologies in supporting industry, automobile, mechanics, textiles and electronics; and supporting Vietnamese enterprises in joining the global production chain. 

The leaders appreciated RoK firms’ participation in developing power plants, which contributes to the development of Vietnam’s electricity industry. They agreed to boost links in the fields of renewable energy, energy saving and energy safety.

Regarding agricultural cooperation, the leaders affirmed the importance of the agricultural sector in the national economy; agreed to expand cooperation in agricultural and rural technology via technical assistance programmes/projects, enhancing involved staff capability, making efforts for the rice industry’s development, and improving the business environment for agricultural and food enterprises.

The two sides welcomed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Vietnam’s Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs and RoK’s Ministry of Labour and Employment on sending and receiving labourers to work in the RoK; agreed to effectively implement the MoU, thus benefiting both sides.

The leaders welcomed the signing of MoUs on infrastructure and transport cooperation, urban construction and development; agreed to promote the role of the Vietnam – RoK centre for transport cooperation, expansion of cooperation in smart traffic infrastructure, information and experience sharing among governmental bodies and enterprises of the two nations, such as experiences in building the Gyeongbu highway and Incheon airport.

On regional and international cooperation, the leaders shared a view on enhancing cooperation in regional and international issues of common concern as well as at multilateral forums, such as the United Nations (UN), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Association 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; increasing capability to jointly address emergency situations, and mutually supporting for each other’s candidacy in international organisations.

They underlined the importance of peace, safety and freedom of navigation, and emphasized the need to peacefully settle related disputes in accordance with international law, to effectively and comprehensively implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and to accelerate the the signing of the Code of Conduct (COC) in the East Sea. Vietnam welcomed and supported the RoK government’s efforts to peacefully deal with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s nuclear issue and promote inter-Korean dialogue.

The leaders witnessed the signing of a MoU on the action programme for trade cooperation in the 2018-2020 period to realise the target of USD100 billion in two-way trade as well as MoUs on supporting industry cooperation, infrastructure and transport, urban construction and development, the 4.0 industry revolution, labour cooperation, among others.

They held that the State visit to Vietnam by RoK President Moon Jae-in is a success, which contributes significantly to fostering friendship and cooperative ties between the two nations as well as promoting peace, stability, and prosperity in the region and the world./.