Minister Truong Minh Tuan receives Korean Ambassador in Vietnam
On February,15, 2017, at the headquarter of the Ministry of Information and Communications, Minister Truong Minh Tuan had a meeting with Korean Ambassador in Vietnam Lee Hyuk.
At the meeting, Minister Truong Minh Tuan said that in the past 25 years, the bilateral relation between Vietnam and South Korea had developed rapidly in most areas. South Korea and Vietnam have become important strategic partners of each other. Currently, South Korea is the largest investor in Vietnam with nearly 5,000 projects (nearly 50 billion US dollars). South Korea is the 3rd largest trading partner of Viet Nam, after China and the US. Trade turnover between the two countries in 2015 was 37 billion US dollars and is expected to reach 70 billion US dollars by 2020. The newly adopted bilateral free trade agreement between South Korea and Vietnam will bring more economic benefits for both sides. South Korea is the leading country in providing ODA for Viet Nam.
About the cooperation between the two countries in the field of ICT, Minister Truong Minh Tuan said that the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning of South Korea and the Ministry of Information and Communications of Vietnam, especially VNPT, had traditional cooperation. From the early 1990s, leading Korean companies had cooperated with Vietnam enterprises in the construction, modernization and improvement of Vietnam's telecommunications networks, helping to boost Viet Nam’s network digitalization strategy and telecommunications service provision to meet the needs of the market.
In particular, recently, the Ministry of Information and Communications of Vietnam signed three MoUs with the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning; Ministry of Interior and Administration and Korea Communications Commission.
Vietnam is very interested in the application of IT in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Minister Truong Minh Tuan expressed his wish that Viet Nam and South Korea’s operators would work closely together to seize the opportunities offered by this revolution.
Korean Ambassador expressed his happiness to see the relationship Viet Nam - South Korea developed in recent years, especially in the fields of investment and trade. In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Ambassador believed the cooperation between the Ministry of Information and Communications of Vietnam and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning of Korea would promote cooperation in the field of IT and telecommunications.