Vietnam and South Korea yesterday agreed to spice up cooperation in nuclear power and superior applied sciences and to strengthen very important provide chains, as they each try and handle the financial fallout from the struggle within the Center East.
At a gathering in Hanoi yesterday, their second prior to now eight months, Vietnam’s prime chief To Lam and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung attended the signing of 12 agreements, together with on power, infrastructure, and safety cooperation, South Korea’s Chosun Day by day reported. Two of those associated to Seoul’s potential cooperation on the event and financing of a nuclear energy plant in southern Vietnam.
Lee arrived in Vietnam on Tuesday from India with a big enterprise delegation in tow for a go to geared toward pursuing “strategic and mutually useful cooperation” at a time of rising international uncertainty.
“Amid provide chain instability stemming from current Center East tensions, we share the popularity that the necessity for cooperation between our nations has grown even larger,” Lee mentioned in a joint assertion issued after the assembly. “We’ve got agreed to collaborate extra carefully to strengthen power safety and stabilize provide chains.”
Along with assembly with Lam, Lee yesterday paid tribute on the mausoleum of revolutionary chief Ho Chi Minh and met with members of the Korean expat neighborhood in Hanoi. He’s scheduled to satisfy with Prime Minister Le Minh Hung and Nationwide Meeting Chairman Tran Thanh Man earlier than departing Vietnam on April 24.
Lam and Lee additionally reaffirmed their intention to develop two-way bilateral commerce to $150 billion by 2030, up from $94.6 billion in 2025. South Korea is the most important investor in Vietnam, with round 10,000 Korean enterprises primarily based within the nation. Apparently addressing considerations by South Korean companies about current Vietnamese regulatory adjustments, Lam mentioned in a press release that his authorities would attempt to “create an open, clear, and handy funding surroundings to make sure that South Korean firms can make investments stably and sustainably in Vietnam.”
The 2 leaders additionally agreed to “assist Vietnamese companies in becoming a member of South Korea’s manufacturing, provide and distribution chains, contributing to the growth of an unbiased and self-reliant financial system,” Lam added after the assembly.
As Reuters notes, additional financial integration with South Korea may additionally assist Vietnam scale back its dependence on China and enmeshment in China-centered provide chains, which have turn out to be a degree of rivalry between it and Washington. The Trump administration is especially involved in regards to the risk that Chinese language items are being routed via Vietnam, and manufactured there with little value-added, so as to keep away from U.S. tariffs
Apart from this, the settlement on nuclear energy might be vital for Vietnam, which is planning to construct two nuclear energy crops in Ninh Thuan Province on the nation’s southeastern coast.
Final month, Vietnam and Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom signed an settlement for the event of two nuclear reactors on the deliberate Ninh Thuan 1 energy plant on the nation’s southeastern coast. However the second challenge (Ninh Thuan 2) stays with out a world companion after Japan withdrew from the challenge late final yr, arguing that the deliberate deadline of 2035 was too tight.
The present Hormuz power disaster has underscored the urgency of the CPV’s seek for dependable power sources that may energy its deliberate industrial upscaling. In late 2024, Hanoi introduced its intention to restart its nuclear power program, which it had deserted in 2016 resulting from considerations about security and financial sustainability.
