Vietnam and South Korea signed multiple cooperation agreements to restart the nuclear power program and strengthen industrial and energy collaboration.

Vietnam and South Korea signed twelve agreements covering security, energy infrastructure, and nuclear power plants after the leaders of the two countries held talks in Hanoi. The core result of this meeting is that both sides reached a substantive consensus on restarting Vietnam's nuclear power program. In addition, Vietnamese General Secretary and State President To Lam emphasized, "Both countries commit to continue facilitating bilateral trade in goods and services and open markets to achieve the goal of reaching a bilateral trade volume of $150 billion by 2030." The memorandum of understanding includes cooperation in the field of nuclear power plant development between Petrovietnam and the Korea Electric Power Corporation, as well as a nuclear power project financing agreement signed by Petrovietnam, the Korea Electric Power Corporation, the Export-Import Bank of Korea, and the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation. For Vietnam, which suspended its nuclear energy program in 2016 due to funding and safety concerns, this marks a significant shift in energy policy aimed at addressing the bottleneck of power shortages hindering its industrial development by introducing Korea's advanced nuclear construction experience. To Lam also pointed out that Vietnam welcomes Korean investments in key areas such as infrastructure construction, smart cities, large-scale artificial intelligence data centers, semiconductor manufacturing, and nuclear projects. According to the Vietnamese government's website, South Korea is Vietnam's top investment partner, second-largest source of tourists, and third-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade expected to reach $89.5 billion by 2024. In response to the current global tension over mineral resources, South Korea and Vietnam have decided to establish a linked mechanism for critical mineral supply chains, particularly in the development of Vietnam's abundant rare earth resources. Korea will provide advanced refining technology in exchange for stable upstream supply to reduce Korea's semiconductor and power battery industries' dependence on a single source. It is worth mentioning that just two weeks before this summit, Samsung Electronics announced plans to invest $4 billion in building a chip packaging plant in northern Vietnam. As Vietnam's largest foreign investor, Samsung is expanding its business footprint in Vietnam. According to Samsung Vietnam, in 2024, Samsung's revenue in Vietnam will account for 13% of Vietnam's GDP. Samsung and its global counterparts are accelerating expansion to meet the increasing demand for chips in data centers and artificial intelligence devices. As an early investor in Vietnam, the Korean conglomerate established its first factory in Bac Ninh Province in 2008. South Korea has long been committed to expanding trade cooperation with Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, to hedge against the impact of the US-China trade war through diversified production bases and export markets. However, the agreements signed by South Korea and Vietnam this time are not just an upgrade in bilateral trade quality but also an important reflection of the restructuring of the East Asian industrial division of labor, indicating that in the next decade, the high-tech value-added industrial chain in the Southeast Asian region will accelerate towards the direction with "South Korea-Vietnam cooperation as the core."