Taking place at a time when bilateral relations are flourishing across multiple fields, especially after the two countries officially upgraded their ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the visit reaffirms the determination of senior leaders to continue nurturing the strong friendship and comprehensive and effective cooperation between Viet Nam and the RoK.
Viet Nam and the RoK established diplomatic relations on December 22, 1992. The seeds of friendship painstakingly planted by generations of leaders and people of the two countries over the past 30 years have today grown into a flourishing tree bearing abundant fruit.
During the state visit to RoK by General Secretary To Lam in August 2025, the two sides adopted a joint statement on deepening the Viet Nam–RoK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This marked the opening of an important new chapter in bilateral relations, promising notable achievements from each country as they enter new stages of development.
President Lee Jae Myung reaffirmed that RoK attaches special importance to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Viet Nam in its overall relations with Asian countries. Political trust continues to be strengthened through regular high-level visits, exchanges, and bilateral cooperation mechanisms. Both sides agreed to continue coordinating closely to effectively and promptly implement the action programme to realise the Viet Nam–RoK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
Relations between the two countries’ legislative bodies have grown strongly and substantively in recent years, achieving many new results and playing an important role in deepening the Viet Nam–RoK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The two sides maintain regular meetings, exchanges of delegations, and close cooperation and mutual support at multilateral parliamentary forums such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA), and the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF), contributing positively to peace, security, and stability in the region and the world.
In this context, the official visit to Viet Nam by Speaker Woo Won Shik and his spouse opens opportunities to further promote Viet Nam–RoK ties through parliamentary diplomacy.
On the foundation of continuously strengthened political trust, bilateral relations have developed vibrantly across multiple areas. The RoK remains one of Viet Nam’s most important economic partners, particularly in fields of trade, investment, and development cooperation. In field of trade, the RoK is Viet Nam’s third-largest trading partner and third-largest export market. In 2024, two-way trade reached 81.5 billion USD, up 7.3% compared to 2023. As of October 2025, the RoK remains the largest investor of Viet Nam, accounting for over 23% of total projects and 18% of total registered foreign direct investment capital, focusing on key sectors of Viet Nam’s economy such as manufacturing and processing, high technology, electronics, automobiles and auto parts, and construction. In the field of development cooperation, Viet Nam continues to be the RoK’s top priority partner in ODA provision. In June 2023, the two sides signed a 2 billion USD- Economic Development Promotion Fund cooperation agreement to implement transport and urban infrastructure development projects in Viet Nam.
In addition, bilateral cooperation in other fields such as national defence, security, science and technology, culture, education, labour, healthcare, and people-to-people exchanges has been strongly promoted. The number of Vietnamese students studying in the RoK has increased rapidly in recent years, now reaching around 43,000. Korean language is taught widely in many Vietnamese universities, with more than 60 universities nationwide having established Korean language faculties, the largest scale in Asia. The two countries also maintain around 100 cooperation and twinning relationships between localities.
The official welcome for Speaker Woo Won Shik and his spouse on an official visit to Viet Nam aims to continue implementing Viet Nam's foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification, multilateralisation, and proactiveness and activeness in comprehensive, deep, and effective international integration. The visit conveys a strong message that, as Viet Nam continues its renewal process and enters a new era of development, the country seeks comprehensive, profound, timely, and effective companionship and support from international friends, especially from Comprehensive Strategic Partners, including the RoK.
The visit also demonstrates Viet Nam’s consistent policy of attaching great importance to cooperation with the RoK. Viet Nam wishes to deepen bilateral cooperation in a more substantive manner, with greater political trust, more comprehensive cooperation, and closer and deeper mutual understanding. This is an opportunity for both countries to continue promoting mutually beneficial cooperation in the fields of national defence, security, economics, and science and technology, while expanding into new areas of cooperation, commensurate with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries.
