The Vietnam National Assembly Chairman Mr Vuong Dinh Hue visited South Korea and India as part of its six-day official visit (Dec 12-19). The highly successful visits show convergence is with regard to the two important partners of Vietnam. During the visit to the two countries the Chairman of the National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue made it sure to interact with the businessman of the two countries and invite trade and investment in new sectors in Vietnam.
During his visit to Korea the Chairman of the National Assembly tried to promote business cooperation and look for areas for promoting strategic partnership between Korea and Vietnam. Vietnam itself is emerging as a new middle power and it is looking for more proactive engagement with the countries which are emerging markets and technology frontiers. The two sides signed nine cooperation agreements and one of the highlights was promotion of vaccine diplomacy and cooperation in health and medical sector.
During his visit to Korea, he tried to project Vietnam’s independent foreign policy espousing for more proactive engagement at bilateral level and promoting cooperation between the legislative assemblies of the two countries. During his visit to Korea, he was accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary General of the National Assembly as well as Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs along with Minister of Environment, Minister of Information and Communications, and Minister Of Culture Sports and Tourism. Vietnam established its diplomatic relations with Korea in the year 1992 and since then there has been lot of synergies which have evolved with regard to politics, diplomacy, security and defence ties as well as economy and culture. As it is well known that Samsung is one of the largest investors in Vietnam in the manufacturing sector and is also running a research and development lab in Vietnam.
The engagement of the Korean conglomerates in Vietnamese economy is profound and it has helped in generating employment and better avenues for growth. During the visit he also signed a bilateral agreement on social insurance which is expected to benefit Vietnamese citizens who work in Korea and also for Korean employees who are employed in Vietnam. During his visit he reached out to the Korean investors and urge the Korean manufacturing companies to set up plants in Vietnam. It is expected that the bilateral trade between Vietnam and Korea might reach the 100-billion-dollar mark in future and the flights between the two countries would be resumed in the coming year.
The two countries would also be celebrating two decades of diplomatic ties in the year 2022, and the chairman of the National Assembly Mr Vuong Dinh Hue expressed that there will be better convergences in diplomacy, parliamentary affairs, and security and defence ties. During his interaction with the Prime Minister of Korea Kim Boo-kyum it was expressed that in the post pandemic economic recovery there will be more interaction between people to people and vaccine passports would be recognised by the two countries.
During his visit to India, he met a number of political leaders and the Chairman and Speaker of the two houses in India. He also met the president Ramnath Kovid , the foreign minister S Jaishankar , another important leaders of the political brass in Delhi. He was also hosted by the foreign minister of India for a public reception and it was a jam-packed hall. S Jaishankar in his lecture highlighted the importance that has been accorded to the visit of Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly and his large business delegation. The Chairman himself in his speech talked about ancient civilisational links and growing trade and commerce between the two countries. In his succinct but power packed speech he set the tone for the celebrations which would ensue from the next year for the five decades of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
During the visit there have been a number of agreements which been signed with regard to cooperation between governments, parliaments and initiating the celebration for the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1972 which completed nearly five decades in the year 2022. India is also interested in investment in various sectors in Vietnam which includes food processing, manufacturing, auto spare parts, information and technology, science and innovation, high tech agriculture and scientific innovation. Vietnam completely agreed to India’s proposal for a common fight against terrorism, drugs and transnational crime.
During his interaction with the Lok Sabha speaker of India, Om Birla the two sides expressed satisfaction with regard to the ties between the two countries and expressed that the two sides should work together in defence and security, trade, culture, and politics and diplomatic convergences. It was also expressed that the two sides could explore synergies in research in medicine, diagnostics, health and community support two areas such as pandemics. The two countries have also supported each other during the time of the second wave of the coronavirus and the Vietnamese National Assembly chairman urged India to share best technologies for vaccine production and testing of new kind of vaccines on the general population. He also stated that the two sides should explore possibilities through Vietnam-India friendship parliamentarians’ group and look for developing efficiency and better work norms in the legislative bodies.
The visit was seen very fruitful from the point of view of political and parliamentarian interactions, business forum meetings and public interactions. The chairman of the National Assembly also inaugurated the photo exhibition which showcased fifty years of diplomatic relations and historical ties between the two countries. In the end the interaction with the president of India was seen as the icing on the cake given the fact that president remark that Vietnam is one of the critical elements of India’s Act East policy. In the statement which was released from the president house it lauded the achievements of Vietnam and also endorsed the fulfilling relationship between the two countries.
