Viet Nam is one of the countries that has effectively used the official development assistance (ODA) provided by South Korea over the past few years.

This was revealed by Chairwoman of the Korea International Co-operation Agency (KOICA) Lee Mi-kyung, at a meeting with head of the Central Economic Commission Nguyen Van Binh on Tuesday.

Binh emphasised that Korea is one of the most important economic partners of Viet Nam, the largest foreign investor with more than US$50 billion and the fourth largest trading partner.

The Viet Nam–Korea Free Trade Agreement, which came into force on December 20, 2015, has created a new impetus for the achievement of the goal of increasing bilateral trade between the two countries to $100 billion by 2020.

Appreciating the effective co-operation of the government of Korea and KOICA in contributing to the overall development of relations between the two countries, Binh asked the Korean government, including KOICA, to continue to expand its co-operation with Viet Nam in all areas, especially vocational training and management capacity projects, in order to support the country in sustainable development and to implement the five-year socio-economic development plan in the 2016-20 period.

Binh also asked South Korea to share its experiences with Viet Nam over financial and capital market development, industrial development, and tax and fiscal policies. Meanwhile, Mi-kyung affirmed that the agency would continue to support Viet Nam in the future to contribute to its socio-economic development and promote further co-operation between the two countries. — VNS