The visit, Sang’s first to the RoK as Viet Nam ’s President is expected to further foster the friendship, mutual understanding and trust between the two countries’ leaders, contributing to strengthening the strategic partnership between Viet Nam and the RoK.

Viet Nam and the RoK officially established diplomatic ties on December 22, 1992 and bilateral relations enjoy fine development through the exchange of high-ranking delegations.

The two countries upgraded bilateral ties to comprehensive partnership in 2001 during President Tran Duc Luong’s visit to the RoK. When President Kim Te Chung visited Viet Nam in 2009, Viet Nam-RoK relations saw a further lift to strategic cooperative partnership.

Regarding economic ties, the RoK is one of the most important partners of Viet Nam . By the end of August this year, the RoK is the largest investor in Viet Nam , with more than 23 billion USD in around 2,800 valid projects to date.

Two-way trade between the two countries in the first nine months this year reached 12.7 billion USD, up 44.5 percent over the same period last year.

Viet Nam continues to be a priority of the RoK in providing the official development assistance (ODA) capital. The country pledged to provide almost 412 million USD to Viet Nam this year, a year-on-year increase of 52.5 percent.

At present, the RoK is the third largest market for Viet Nam ’s labour export, with about 60,000 Vietnamese working in the country. Last year, Viet Nam sent more than 8,200 workers to the RoK and in the first eight months of this year, Viet Nam brought 13,500 people to this market,

The RoK is also a potential market for Viet Nam ’s tourism sector. In 2010, almost 496,000 RoK visitors arrived in Viet Nam , up nearly 40 percent over 2009. In the first months of this year, 387,000 holiday-makers visited Viet Nam .

Viet Nam and the RoK also effectively cooperated in the fields of education and training and culture. The two countries have signed several cooperative agreements in these fields. In 2006 the RoK established the RoK’s Culture Centre in Ha Noi . The RoK’s government, universities and organisations have helped Viet Nam improve infrastructure for education and provided scholarships to Vietnamese students to study in the RoK.

The people-to-people friendship between the two countries was also strengthened through the establishment of the RoK-Viet Nam Friendship Association and the Viet Nam-RoK Friendship Association.

In the visit by Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, the two sides will discuss measures to promote the multifaceted cooperation relations between the two countries, especially in the fields of economics, trade, investment, tourism, science and technology cooperation, culture and education. The two countries have also set the target of raising two-way trade to 20 billion USD by 2015./.