1. Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs Lee Tae-ho, together with Deputy Minister Nguyen The Phuong of the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment, held the 15th meeting of the Republic of Korea-Vietnam Joint Economic Committee in Hanoi, Vietnam, on September 22. In the meeting, the two sides reviewed the progress in economic cooperation between their two countries and discussed ways for them to work more closely together on trade, investment, development and regional matters.

2. The two sides noted with appreciation that since the establishment of their diplomatic relations in 1992, the ROK and Vietnam have maintained exemplary cooperative ties on materials and people-to-people exchanges, as demonstrated by the more than 76-, 451- and 160-fold increases in their trade volume, investment and people-to-people exchanges, respectively, with an annual number of visitors to each other’s countries reaching 1.28 million.

3. The two sides reviewed the progress in the follow-up measures regarding the economic cooperation project agreed upon at the bilateral summit talks held on the sidelines of the ASEM Summit in July 2016; and discussed ways to work together in such economic fields as trade, investment, infrastructure and finance.

° The two sides drew a common understanding that in order to attain the goal of posting 70 billion US dollars in trade by 2020 as agreed in September 2013 by their leaders, the two countries should fully implement the bilateral FTA in force since December 20, 2015.

° The ROK side asked the Vietnamese government to pay attention to and support bids of Korean companies to take part in projects to construct such forms of infrastructure as roads, subways and thermoelectric power plants, and to build presence in the financial sector in Vietnam.

° The ROK side also asked the Vietnamese government to help resolve challenges facing local Korean enterprises with regard to taxation and working conditions. The Vietnamese side responded that efforts will be made to meet the ROK’s request.

4. The two sides took note of the continuously growing grant aid and development cooperation between the ROK and Vietnam, one of the ROK’s main partners for official development assistance (ODA), through the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF); and agreed to work closely together to make a success of joint infrastructure-building projects.

5. The two sides, taking note of bilateral cooperation on the regional level, including that between the ROK and ASEAN and between the ROK and the Greater Mekong Subregion, agreed to step up cooperation on multilateral and regional issues.

6. The 15th meeting of the ROK-Vietnam Joint Economic Committee is seen to have contributed to efforts to make substantial progress in economic cooperation with Vietnam, with which the ROK has been continuously seeing trade and investment increase even amid the global economic slowdown. It is also seen to have played a role in resolving challenges facing Korean companies and thereby in supporting bids of Korean companies to expand their presence in the Vietnamese market.

7. On the sidelines of the meeting of the Joint Economic Committee, Deputy Minister Lee met with Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung to share the ROK government’s stern position on the nuclear test by North Korea and to ask the Vietnamese government to take an active part in the lead-up to the adoption of new sanctions, which are under discussion at the UN Security Council.


* unofficial translation