Speaker of Korean National Assembly to visit Viet Nam next week

The visit will be made at the invitation of Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue, according to an announcement by the legislative body's Committee for Foreign Affairs.

Viet Nam and the Republic of Korea established diplomatic relations on December 22, 1992 and upgraded the relationship to comprehensive partnership in 2001 on the occasion of Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong's visit to the Republic of Korea.

Both countries further elevated the bilateral ties to strategic cooperative partnership in October 2009 during the Viet Nam visit by Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and to to comprehensive strategic partnership during Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc's visit to the Republic of Korea in December 2022.

As of September 2022, the Republic of Korea remained the largest foreign investor in Viet Nam with more than US$80 billion, accounting for 18.6 percent of the total investment in the Southeast Asian country.

The Northeast Asian nation has pledged to offer Viet Nam with US$1.2 billion in preferential loans from 2012 to 2020, becoming the second biggest provider of official development assistance for Viet Nam.

The Republic of Korea was Viet Nam's third largest trade partner with the two-way trade reaching US$66.65 billion in 2019, US$65 billion in 2020, and US$78 billion in 2021.

As both sides signed a free trade agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the two countries expect to raise the two-way trade to US$100 billion in 2023 and US$150 billion by the end of this decade.

The two countries have been coordinating closely on regional and international issues of shared concern, including the East Sea and the Korean Peninsula, and fostering collaboration at multilateral forums and organizations./.