Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has requested the South Korean side ratify the bilateral trade agreement (FTA) signed with Vietnam earlier this year so that the trade pact will take effect soon.
The Prime Minister made the request at a meeting with South Korea’s Deputy Minister of Strategy and Finance Joo Hyung Hwan in Hanoi last week, according to Vietnam News Agency.
The Government leader said Vietnam has ratified the FTA and expected South Korea would do the same soon.
Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang and Korean Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy Yoon Sang-jick signed the bilateral FTA in Hanoi early May, or more than two years after the two countries initiated the first round of negotiations over the pact in August 2012.
Vietnam will remove 89.2% of tariff lines for imports from Korea under the trade pact. These products include materials for electronics, apparel production, home appliances, trucks and passenger cars of no more than 3,000 cubic centimeters, auto parts, certain steel types and electrical cables.
In return, Korea will liberalize 95.4% of tariff lines for Vietnam’s goods including fruit, apparel, furniture, manufactured goods, and certain seafood and farm products.
Once in place, the FTA will help promote Korean investments in Vietnam and send two-way trade tripling to US$70 billion by 2020.
Joo said the Korean Government is urgently completing necessary procedures for the legislature to ratify the FTA. He called for the Vietnamese Government to create Korean banks to open branches in Vietnam to support Korean investments in this market.
PM Dung said financial cooperation is a new but key part of strategic partnership between Vietnam and Korea and that country is one of Vietnam’s leading partners in terms of investment, commerce and official development assistance.
He hailed the cooperation of Korean and Vietnamese agencies in executing financial agreements the two countries have clinched, including the loans totaling up to US$12 billion the northeastern Asian country has pledged for railway, road and urban transport development in Vietnam.
Vietnam has mapped out investment strategies for a high-speed railway system linking the north and the south and urban railway projects.
The Prime Minister hopes competent agencies of Korea and Vietnam will discuss specific measures to make the most of the US$12-billion loans and financial requirements for specific types of projects and prioritized projects with a focus on railway infrastructure development.
Joo said his agency will work closely with the Vietnamese side to implement the agreements on financial cooperation, including the credit package of US$12 billion.
Joo said Vietnam’s stable socio-economic development is one of the key factors for cooperation expansion between the two countries to the financial sector.
(Source: Saigontimes)