Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong arrived in Seoul on October 1
afternoon, beginning his four-day state visit to the Republic of Korea
(RoK) at the invitation of President Park Geun-hye.
The
Vietnamese Party leader were welcomed at Seongnam airport by RoK Foreign
Minister Yun Byung-se and senior officials from the RoK Government,
Vietnamese Ambassador to the RoK Pham Huu Chi along with a crowd of
Vietnamese living and studying in the country.
On the day, Party
General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong received a delegation of the Korea-Vietnam
Friendship Association (KOVIFA) led by President Choi Young-joo, hailing
the association’s efforts to the development of friendship and
cooperation between the two countries.
He said he hoped the association would continue contributing to the promotion of people-to-people exchanges.
He
then met with representatives of the two Ly families in the RoK called
the Ly Tinh Thien (Changcheon Lee) family and the Ly Hoa Son (Hwasan
Lee) family.
The Party leader said the two Ly families living in
the RoK for seven-eight centuries was evidence for the long-standing
traditional relations between the two countries
He briefed the
representatives of the two Ly families on Vietnam’s socio-economic
development and the Party and State’s policies while stressing that the
Party and State always consider the overseas Vietnamese community as an
indispensable part of the nation.
He said he wished the two Ly
families should unite, provide mutual assistance, and contribute to the
RoK’s development as well as the process of nation-building back home,
thus contributing to the two countries’ friendship and cooperation.
The
visit by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong aims to further
strengthen and deepen the Vietnam-RoK strategic cooperation partnership
in all-around field, especially in economics. It is also to promote the
relations the two ruling parties and the friendship between the two
peoples.
The RoK is Vietnam’s third largest trade partner
with two-way trade reaching 27.5 billion USD last year, quadrupling the
2007 level. The two countries set to raise bilateral trade to 70 billion
USD by 2020 and are actively finalising negotiations towards the early
signing of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
The RoK is
also the second largest donor of official development assistance (ODA)
to Vietnam, after Japan, with a committed amount of 1.2 billion USD for
the 2012-2015 period.
As many as 120,000 Vietnamese are living
and working in the RoK, including 50,000 Vietnamese-Korean couples. The
RoK community in Vietnam also numbers around 120,000.-VNA