Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh and his Korean counterpart Sung Yun-mo have discussed measures to further bolster economic, trade and investment partnership between the two countries.

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During their meeting in Busan on the sidelines of the ASEAN-Republic of Korea (RoK) Commemorative Summit and the first Mekong-RoK Summit, the two sides sought ways to specify the bilateral cooperation potential and deal with issues in various fields.

In the area of industry, the two sides agreed to increase collaboration in enhancing Vietnam’s capacity in production, especially in processing-manufacturing and supporting industry, thus increasing Vietnam’s exports to the RoK and third countries.

The two sides will work closely together to inaugurate the Vietnam-RoK consultancy and technology solution centre (VITASK) in 2019, while building a database on supporting industry businesses and realizing the memorandum of understanding between Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade and Samsung Vietnam on cooperation in personnel training.

They will also continue implementing human resources training programme in supporting industry. The RoK will help Vietnam improve capacity in technical design for firms in the garment and textile sector.

In the field of energy, the two sides expressed their pleasure at effective collaboration of relevant agencies and businesses of both sides over the years. Many Korean firms have engaged in BOT projects or become EPC contractors for big projects in Vietnam.

The two countries agreed to promote affiliation in energy safety and saving.

The efficient bilateral cooperation in energy showed the confidence of Korean firms in the Vietnamese business climate and socio-economic policies, they noted.

In the area of trade, both sides concurred to apply all necessary measures to boost trade and investment ties in the direction of increasing Vietnam’s exports to the RoK, especially agro-fisheries products, while strengthening the attraction of RoK’s investment in Vietnam in food production and processing and trade infrastructure development.

They also agreed to facilitate the export of Vietnam’s agro-fisheries products to the RoK, while strengthening collaboration in trade defence through the affiliation in implementing a technical assistance programme to help Vietnam build and operate a trade defence early warning system, and popularizing Vietnamese laws to Korean firms and updating them with information of trade defence cases.

The two sides will also join hands in enhancing Vietnam’s capacity in product designing, while creating favourable conditions for Vietnamese goods to enter distribution channels in the RoK, and working together in human resources training for trade sector.

On the occasion, the two ministers co-chaired the third meeting of the joint committee on the implementation of the Vietnam-RoK free trade agreement and witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding among the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy, and Lotte Group.