Vietnam should make changes to its legal system, speed up administrative reforms, and cut off sub-licences to better facilitate Korean investors, said Hong Sun, Chairman of the Korea Chamber of Business in Vietnam.

He suggested Vietnam relax policies on work permits, temporary residence, and fire protection permits during a seminar to seek further trade and investment opportunities between Vietnam and the Korea in Hanoi on May 8.

The chairman said many Korean businesses operating in Vietnam, especially those in high-tech, finance and energy sectors, considered increasing their investment capital and making new investments if the country's investment climate remained stable.

Korean businesses needed to pay close attention to legal issues to avoid risk in investment in Vietnam, he said, adding that these firms should carefully review the contracts, and legal issues and seek legal advice from reputable law offices when they start applying for the licence approvals.

Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of the Vietnam International Arbitration Centre agreed. He said businesses from the two countries needed to pay close attention to legal issues and contracts as a means of protecting each other from risks in transactions.

Loc added that with a large network of experts, economists, arbitrators, the Vietnam International Arbitration Centre, the Korean Business Association, and the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board would provide them with useful legal advice for their investment activities in the future.

Currently, the RoK is Vietnam's leading source of foreign investment with a total capital of 80.5 billion USD. In the first four months of 2023, the RoK, along with Singapore, Japan, China, Taiwan (China) and Hong Kong (China) accounted for 75.1% of the country's total investment capital.

Besides investment, the RoK also ranks second in terms of cooperation in tourism and labour, and third in trade exchanges with Vietnam.

Bilateral trade between the two countries reached nearly 88 billion USD last year. The RoK's export turnover to Vietnam last year totalled 60.98 billion USD, while it spent 26.72 billion USD on importing goods from the Southeast Asian nation.

However, Vietnam's exports to the RoK contracted 7% year-on-year to 7.8 billion USD in the first four months of 2023. During the period, Vietnam's imports from the market hit 16.7 billion USD, down 26% year-on-year. 

Trade experts said the Korean market had an import scale of 731 billion USD each year, so there remained much potential for Vietnamese enterprises to tap into this lucrative market.

VNA