Việt Nam, RoK working towards comprehensive strategic partnership

Participants take group photo on the sidelines of the meeting. — VNA/VNS Photo 

HÀ NỘI — The 5th Vietnam – Republic of Korea (RoK) Forum for the Future took place in Hà Nội on Monday on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the countries’ diplomatic ties.

In his opening remarks, President of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences Bùi Nhật Quang noted the two countries elevated their diplomatic relations, set up in 1992, to a comprehensive cooperative partnership in the 21st century in 2001 and then a strategic cooperative partnership in 2009. They are planning to lift bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership this year.

Highlighting the unceasingly reinforced and expanded relations, he held that Việt Nam and the RoK now have new and promising opportunities for cooperation.

The achievements of the 30-year relationship and similarities in strategic interests will serve as an impulse for lifting their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and cementing the countries’ connectivity for the sake of the two peoples as well as for peace, stability, prosperity, cooperation, and development in the region and the world at large, according to Quang.

Nguyễn Thị Thanh, Chairwoman of the Vietnam – RoK Parliamentary Friendship Group, said the RoK is a leading partner of Việt Nam in most fields while Việt Nam, with a fast-growing and dynamic economy, is a focal partner of the RoK in its New Southern Policy.

Both sides should create new driving forces and work out appropriate cooperation orientations and measures in order to further intensify their close-knit connections, she added, recommending increasing high-level contact, improving the effectiveness of dialogue and cooperation mechanisms, and continuing to boost collaboration in politics, diplomacy, defence, security, economy, science – technology, energy, health care, culture, education, tourism, and people-to-people and locality-to-locality exchanges.

For his part, RoK Ambassador Park Noh-wan affirmed the two countries have been cooperating successfully over the last 30 years, and that they have long viewed each other as partners of leading importance in such traditional fields as trade, investment, development cooperation, and tourism.

Việt Nam and the RoK are building close partnerships in new aspects like security, economy, healthcare, climate change response, and defence. They are planning to elevate bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2022, he noted.

The forum featured three sessions that discussed the 30-year cooperation, the countries’ strategic cooperation in the new international economic – political context, and the prospect, opportunities, and measures for partnership elevation.

Initiated in 2012, the Vietnam – RoK Forum for the Future is an important dialogue channel for the two countries’ policymakers, experts, and scholars. Opinions at the event will be summarised in a recommendation report to be submitted to the countries’ Governments. — VNS