Hanoi (VNA) – Chairman of the National Assembly (NA) Vuong Dinh Hue had talks via videoconference with Speaker of the NA of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Park Byeong-seug on June 23, in which he affirmed Vietnam’s readiness to work with the RoK to lift bilateral ties to a new height.

Hue stressed that Vietnam treasures and wants to develop its cooperation and friendship with the RoK, which is one of the leading and long-term partners of the Southeast Asian country.

Vietnam highly values and believes that the RoK’s New Southern Policy will create great opportunities for the two countries to strengthen their strategic cooperative partnership, he said.

Regarding the Korean Speaker’s proposal to elevate the bilateral relationship, which will turn 30 in 2022, to a comprehensive strategic partnership, Hue affirmed that Vietnam is ready to work with the RoK to lift their relations to a new height.

The Vietnamese leader noted with satisfaction that despite the pandemic’s serious impacts, bilateral economic, trade, and investment ties have still been growing well and formed one of the drivers for their ties in other aspects.

In the current context, businesses, especially leading enterprises of the RoK, still view Vietnam as an attractive investment destination and continue to invest strongly in the country, he remarked.

The Chairman asked both sides to continue enhancing connectivity between the two economies based on the signed free trade agreements and fostering bilateral trade. He called on the RoK to create favourable conditions for Vietnamese goods, especially agricultural products, to enter its market to help address the trade imbalance so as to achieve the target of 100 billion USD in bilateral trade soon.

He also applauded Samsung’s establishment of a research and development centre in Hanoi and its attention to the supporting industries in Vietnam, describing this as a good way to boost bilateral trade.

The Vietnamese NA and Government highly value the role of Korean investors and will create more conditions for them to address difficulties to make long-term and successful investment in Vietnam, Hue affirmed.

On this occasion, he thanked the RoK for assisting Vietnam in the COVID-19 combat, suggesting the two countries to cooperate closely via the COVAX Facility to ensure the implementation of their respective vaccine strategies.

They should consider the exchange of experts and the pilot application of vaccine passports to tourism and other activities in the time to come, he suggested.

For his part, Park said Vietnam is one of the important partners of the RoK and pointed out that more than 8,000 Korean businesses are operating in the Southeast Asian nation.

During the talks, the two leaders held that Vietnam and the RoK should step up bilateral cooperation and people-to-people exchange, considering Vietnamese - Korean families as a precious common asset that needs to be treasured and supported.

Having suggested both sides strengthen cooperation in culture, sports, and education, Hue spoke highly of coach Park Hang-seo’s contributions to the Vietnamese men’s national football team, helping them to secure a berth in the third and final qualifiers of the FIFA 2022 World Cup, and described this as a symbol in the cultural exchange between the people of the two nations.

Vietnam and the RoK should also actively support each other’s roles at multilateral forums and international parliamentary cooperation mechanisms for the sake of human development as well as regional and global peace and security, he said.

Hue also affirmed that Vietnam has always served as a responsible member of the international community and actively contributed to global peace, stability, and development, including via efforts to promote the maintenance of peace on the Korean Peninsula./.