Party General Secretary begins RoK visit

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong arrived in Seoul on the afternoon of October 1, beginning his four-day state visit to the Republic of Korea (RoK) at the invitation of President Park Geun-hye.

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is welcomed in Seoul on October 1. (Credit: VNA)

The Vietnamese Party leader was welcomed at Seongnam airport by RoK Foreign Minister, Yun Byung-se and senior officials from the RoK Government, plus 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 Trong received a delegation from the Korea-Vietnam Friendship Association (KOVIFA) led by President Choi Young-joo, hailing the association’s efforts to assist the development of friendship and co-operation between the two countries.

He said he hoped the association would continue to contribute 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 to eight centuries was evidence of 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 Party and State 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 would 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 co-operation.

The visit by Party General Secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong aims to further strengthen and deepen the Vietnam-RoK strategic co-operation partnership in many fields, especially in economics. It is also designed to promote relations between the two ruling parties and friendship between the two peoples.

The RoK is Vietnam’s third largest trade partner, with two-way trade reaching US$27.5 billion last year, quadrupling the 2007 level. The two countries are set to raise bilateral trade to US$70 billion 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 US$1.2 billion 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.

(Source: nhandan.org.vn)