Construction of S. Korea-Vietnam cooperation center on smart cities completed in Hanoi

Construction of a South Korea-Vietnam cooperation center for smart city development was completed in Hanoi on Tuesday, Seoul's land ministry said. A completion ceremony for the Vietnam-Korea Cooperation Center for Smart City and Construction Technology (VKC) was held in the capital of the Southeast Asian nation, which was attended by around 150 guests from the two countries. Dignitaries included Choi Young-sam, South Korea's ambassador to Vietnam, Kim Byung-suk, president of the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, and Nguyen Tuong Van, Vietnam's deputy minister of construction. The 7.5 billion-won (US$5.47 million) center was initiated as an official development assistance project by the ministry as part of a bilateral urban development agreement signed at a 2018 summit. Construction started in June 2020. The VKC, located within Hanoi's Academy of Managers for Construction and Cities, includes various facilities, such as a smart city technology exhibition hall and an education c enter. Vietnam is one of the leading Asian countries in terms of overseas construction orders and has a high demand for urbanization and regional development, maintaining an annual economic growth rate of over 7 percent. "We will further actively seek out bilateral cooperation projects, focusing on our areas involving smart cities, housing and urban development, airports and railways," a ministry official said. Source: Yonhap News Agency