President of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Park Geun Hye arrived in Ha Noi late on September 7 to begin her five-day State visit to Viet Nam at the invitation of her Vietnamese counterpart Truong Tan Sang.

The RoK plans to forge a closer relationship with Viet Nam in the near future, raising bilateral ties to their highest level since diplomatic links were first established in 1992, President Park declared in a recent interview with the Viet Nam News Agency.

RoK President Park Geun Hye

Over the past two decades, the two countries have seen their bilateral trade grow 44 times bigger, investment rise 250 times and human resources exchange 80 times, the President continued, adding that Viet Nam is the RoK’s largest ODA recipient.

There are about 500,000 Vietnamese guest workers in the RoK and 50,000 Vietnamese-RoK families are living in the country.

Regarding the future prospects for relations, she said she hoped that the two sides will deepen their strategic cooperative partnership established in 2009 in order for common prosperity in the next 20 years.

The RoK government will expand the scope of strategic cooperation and mutual benefit between the two countries in new fields, such as the environment and climate change, energy security, information and communications and biotechnology to develop their partnership in a sustainable manner, she added.

“I hope that our two countries will develop close partnership to deal with issues facing Asia’s peace and prosperity and the international community,” she said, expressing her expectation that the two sides will strengthen cooperation in the international arena.

According to the President, she chose Viet Nam to be the first leg of her tour of ASEAN as her country has always had good relations with Viet Nam and is determined to further develop them. “It is time we prepared for the next 20 years and promote our economic ties intensively and extensively,” she said.

The President said a policy framework is needed, and expressed her hope that during upcoming talks with President Sang, the two sides will discuss measures to lift their economic relationship to new heights for their mutual benefit.

She nted that cooperation activities in science and technology have been busy since the two partners signed a cooperation agreement in the field in 1995.

The establishment of the Viet Nam-RoK Centre for Biological Material Research in Ha Noi in June this year proves that science-technology still holds a lot of potential for future cooperation, she said.

The RoK leader also revealed that the two sides will likely sign an MOU on the establishment of the Viet Nam-Korea Institute of Science and Technology (V-KIST), which is hoped to aid Viet Nam’s sci-tech development.

Now that the Vietnamese government is making great efforts to develop Information Communication Technology (ICT), the RoK hopes to help in this field, as it is an area in which it has considerable expertise, the President said.

(Source: VNA)