PRESIDENCY
Two nations overcome sad past, seek co-prosperity
President Park Geun-hye welcomed byPresident Truong Tan Sang of Vietnam
President Park Geun-hye had a summit meeting with President Truong Tan Sang of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi on Sept. 9, 2013 during her five-day official state visit to Vietnam, and discussed ways to substantially strengthen cooperation between the two countries with the top government and party leaders of Vietnam, including General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, and Chairman (Speaker) Nguyen Sinh Hung of the National Assembly of Vietnam.
At her meeting with President Truong Tan Sang, they reportedly agreed to try to conclude a high-level comprehensive Free Trade Agreement next year.
In the joint declaration of the summit meeting, the two leaders agreed to jointly endeavor for the construction of nuclear power plants in Vietnam, which brightens the possibility of Korea’s winning of orders of the nuclear power plant construction. They also agreed to upgrade bilateral cooperation one level higher in the political, cultural and cultural spheres and thereby to open a new ‘two-decade of cooperation’ between the two countries.
Vietnam adopted the so-called ‘Doi Moi’ open economic policy in 1986, and as a result has attained a very rapid economic development. Vietnam has an excellent work force and foreign direct investments in Vietnam have continuously grown. A total of over 2,700 big and small-medium business companies have entered Vietnam.
Korea is trying to win a nuclear power plant contract of US$10 billion and thermo power plant of US$5.9 billion plus large-scale oil storage facilities.
Vietnam is considered the central country among the three emerging ‘VIP’ (Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines). The per-capital GNI (gross national income) of Vietnam is known to be US$1,350, but Vietnam has a very strong potential of rapid development and growth in view of the fact that she has various strong advantages including a large young work force and the strong desire on the part of the people for education.
During her tour of Vietnam, President Park personally modeled a Hanbok Korean dress in a joint Korean-Vietnamese fashion parade of Hanbok and Aodai of Vietnam, and also paid her homage to the late former President Ho Chi Minh at his tomb in order to win the heart of the Vietnamese people.
Korea has a sad history with Vietnam. In the 1960s, the late former President Park Chung-Hee (the father of President Park Geun-hye), sent a total of 320,000 Korean combat troops to Vietnam in ten years to fight against the Vietnamese soldiers.
Today, however, Korea and Vietnam are ‘in-law’ countries as 50,000 Koreans and Vietnamese people have married with one another. Korea and Vietnam have been overcoming the unfortunate history of the past and opening a new chapter of history of harmony, cooperation and joint prosperity.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, Korea and Vietnam have increased the volume of trade and economic cooperation by a whopping 4,000 percent.
President Park Geun-hye and President Truong Tan Sang also expressed a common concern over North Korea’s testing of nuclear weapons, and urged that North Korea will follow the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the September-19, 2005 Joint Statement in which North Korea declared its abandonment of development of nuclear weapons at the Six-Party Talks.
The two leaders also urged North Korea to become a responsible member of the international community. k