South Korea’s Lee Meets Vietnam’s Prime Minister, National Assembly Speaker on Cooperation

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung met Thursday (local time) with Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung and National Assembly Speaker Tran Thanh Man, the country’s No. 2 and No. 3 leaders, to discuss ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation.

The meetings followed Lee’s talks the previous day with To Lam, Vietnam’s top leader, the Communist Party general secretary and state president, completing two days of meetings with the country’s newly formed leadership.

At the prime minister’s office in Hanoi, Lee asked for support to expand strategic cooperation in areas he described as new growth engines for economic development, including nuclear power, transportation infrastructure and energy, saying the two countries could build a new “Red River miracle” together.

Lee said he believed the prime minister would provide strong support so South Korean companies could invest with confidence, and expressed hope the talks would further deepen economic cooperation in line with the countries’ close partnership and lead to shared prosperity.

Hung said Vietnam is focused on carrying out strategic tasks to achieve rapid and sustainable national development. He said Vietnam aims to become a high-income developing country with modern industry by 2030 and a high-income advanced country by 2045.

Hung also formally invited Prime Minister Kim Min-seok to visit Vietnam.

Lee later met Tran at the National Assembly building and said he hoped exchanges between the two legislatures would expand so bilateral cooperation could be supported institutionally. He asked for the Vietnamese National Assembly’s active role in ensuring ties continue to develop steadily.

Lee said South Korea and Vietnam have built an unusually fast-growing, mutually beneficial partnership based on trade, investment and active people-to-people exchanges. He said bilateral trade has increased 190-fold and people-to-people exchanges 2,400-fold compared with the time the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1992.

Lee said the two countries are among each other’s top three trading partners and that South Korea is Vietnam’s largest source of foreign investment, adding that consistent support from the Vietnamese National Assembly helped make those results possible.

Tran said Lee’s trip was his first visit to Vietnam since taking office and a state visit taking place after Vietnam’s 16th National Assembly was newly formed, reflecting Vietnam’s special emphasis on relations with South Korea.