On the morning of May 25, 2022, in Hanoi, the General Statistics Office (GSO) had a polite reception with the delegation of the Korea Statistical Office (KOSTAT). General Director of GSO Nguyen Thi Huong chaired the reception. Attending this reception were Mr. Nguyen Trung Tien, Deputy General Director of GSO, and leaders of Departments under GSO. On the KOSTAT side, there were Mr. Hyungjun Ahn, General Director in charge of Statistical Policy, KOSTAT; Mr. Eun-Pyo Hong, Project Manager “Supporting the General Statistics Office to improve the quality of official statistics, build a national statistical database, and train staff” technical funded by KOSTAT; experts from the Korea Statistics Promotion Institute (KSPI) and the Korea Statistical Information Institute (KOSII).
Director-General Nguyen Thi Huong said that with the 30-year-old diplomatic relationship between Vietnam and South Korea, the two countries have built a strong friendship and upgraded to a strategic cooperation partnership between Vietnam and Korea. In recent years, cooperation between the two countries has been expanded based on mutual trust and respect. The fields of cooperation between Vietnam and Korea now include economy, culture, tourism, and art. In addition to the increasing presence of Korean businesses investing and doing business in Vietnam (such as Samsung, LG, Lotte, Hyundai, and Daewoo), cultural and art exchange activities are also frequented by the two countries. Trade turnover between Vietnam and South Korea has increased steadily over the years. Korea is Vietnam’s leading economic partner as it is the largest FDI investor in Vietnam and the third-largest trading partner of Vietnam after China and the United States. In the opposite direction, Vietnam is the focus of South Korea’s South Korea policy in the ASEAN region when the two countries’ trade turnover accounts for more than 40% of the total trade turnover between Korea and ASEAN.
Within the cooperation relationship framework between the two countries, the cooperation relationship between the GSO and KOSTAT is also increasingly strong. The two statistical agencies have signed a memorandum of bilateral cooperation for 20 years and have effectively implemented the cooperation in recent years. In 2020 and 2021, despite the complicated developments of the Covid-19 pandemic, the international cooperation team between the two agencies still closely coordinated to develop and submit for approval the Project “Supporting the GSO to improve the official statistics quality, national statistical database development, and staff training” funded by KOSTAT. The above fields are all aimed at improving the quality of statistical information, the quality of statisticians, and the statistics dissemination. The project’s support will help the GSO successfully implement the Vietnam Statistical Development Strategy from 2021 to 2030, with a vision for 2045.
Director General Nguyen Thi Huong believes that with the spirit of cooperation and responsibility of the parties, the GSO and KOSTAT will closely coordinate, allocate resources and create the most favorable conditions for the successful implementation of the Project.
Also at the meeting, Mr. Hyungjun Ahn, General Director in charge of Statistical Policy, KOSTAT expressed his pleasure at the cooperation between GSO and Korea in recent years. He said that the evaluation of the quality of statistics has been done for a long time and the KOSTAT also has much experience in this field. Mr. Hyungjun Ahn also pledged that KOSTAT will give its full support to GSO to successfully implement the Project.
On behalf of the Project Team, Mr. Eun-Pyo Hong, Project Manager of Korea, thanked the GSO’s Board of Directors and shared information related to the Project, and expressed his confidence in the project. Under the close guidance of GSO and Korea’s leadership, the project certainly will be a great success, a premise to continue other projects in the future.