The RoK is currently the largest investor in Vietnam with about 5,600 projects worth 50 billion USD across 52 provinces and cities, while Vietnam is the RoK’s third largest economic partner. The bilateral trade between Vietnam and the RoK recorded annual average growth of 19 percent in the last ten years.
The Chairman of the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) Kim Inho said that the Vietnamese Government’s investment attraction policies have helped bring development opportunities to foreign businesses, including those from the RoK. Vietnam’s stable economic growth lays a solid foundation for RoK firms to expand investment in Vietnam, he added. Many largest firms of the RoK such Lotte, CJ, Samsung, and Daewoo have effective operation in Vietnam now.
The Vietnam-RoK Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in late 2015, has lifted the relationship between two countries in a new stage, created more business opportunities for two countries’ enterprises in the coming time.
The RoK Consul General in Ho Chi Minh CityPark Noh Wan affirmed that Vietnam is the leading destination for RoK firms’ business. RoK companies are seeking to invest in agriculture and farm produce processing in Vietnam, adding that local-level trade promotion events will help the two countries’ businesses to establish partnership and sign specific agreements.
Korean firms are investing in 18 different fields in Vietnam, with high technology and service being the main sectors, Meanwhile, Vietnam is calling for the RoK’s investment in the agro-forestry-aquaculture sector, which is hoped to create a new cooperation field between the two countries’ enterprises in the near future.
