The Vietnam-Korea Business Forum Spring 2018 was also held to devise measures to expand trade and investment promotion between the two countries, striving to reach bilateral trade turnover worth US$100 billion by 2020.
Speaking at the forum, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Le Quang Manh said that the relationship between Vietnam and the RoK has developed to become increasingly beneficial for both sides with stable growth and impressive results.
Starting from what was mainly the outsourcing projects in the light industry sector, Korean enterprises are now playing an important role in several key economic sectors in Vietnam, such as electronics, energy, automobile manufacturing, garments, and construction.
The RoK is currently Vietnam’s largest FDI partner with more than 6,760 valid projects in the Southeast Asian country, worth a total registered investment capital of US$59 billion. Regarding trade, the RoK has become the second largest trading partner of Vietnam and in turn Vietnam is the RoK’s fourth largest trading partner. In 2017, bilateral trade turnover reached about US$64 billion, an increase of 32% over 2016, and a 128 fold increase compared with the figures for when the two established diplomatic ties in 1992.
At the forum, businesses from the two countries discussed important issues regarding the current situations of both sides’ economies and the direction for development in the future, as well as the prospects for investment in Vietnam, its real estate market, and financial investment in the country.
Ban Won-ik, Vice Chairman of the Association of High Potential Enterprises of Korea, said that the strong investment wave from Korean companies in Vietnam today is due to the active support from the Government of Vietnam’s facilitated policies through its revision of the legal system and the privatisation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs).
According to Deputy Minister Manh, Vietnam encourages and expresses its desire to cooperate with the RoK in various fields, including manufacturing industry, supporting industries, new materials - precision mechanics, hi-tech agriculture, IT, renewable energy, infrastructure development, smart-city building, medical care, high quality services, and SOEs’ equitisation.
