A high-level delegation of the Vietnamese National Assembly (NA) led by NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan will pay an official visit to the Republic of Korea (RoK) from December 4-7.

NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. (Photo: VNA)

The visit will be made at the invitation of Speaker of the RoK National Assembly Moon Hee-sang, the NA Committee for External Affairs said in a statement.

Vietnam and the RoK established diplomatic ties on December 22, 1992. They set up their comprehensive strategic partnership in August 2001, and lifted the ties to a strategic cooperative partnership in October 2009.

The bilateral political and diplomatic relations are strong, which is reflected through regular high-level visits and meetings.

In 2006, an agreement on cooperation between the two legislatures was signed, an important legal document for both sides to develop their friendship and cooperation.

The nations also established important security-defence cooperation mechanisms, including a security dialogue and defence dialogue at the deputy ministerial level.

The RoK is currently one of Vietnam’s most important economic partners, ranking first in terms of investment, and second in development cooperation, trade and tourism.

Two-way trade jumped from USD 500 million in 1992 to USD 61.5 billion in 2017, of which USD 14.8 billion came from Vietnam’s exports, up 30 per cent from the previous year, and USD 46.7 billion from the Southeast Asian country’s imports, a year-on-year increase of 45.3 per cent.

The two countries are working to raise the turnover to USD 100 billion by 2020./.

VNF/VNA