(2nd LD) S. Korean president arrives in Vietnam on state visit

(ATTN: UPDATES with reports of Moon's visit with Vietnam's national football team in paras 4-7; ADDS photos)

HANOI, March 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in arrived in Hanoi on Thursday for a three-day visit that will include a summit meeting with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang.

The trip marks Moon's first state visit to Vietnam since taking office last year, though he was in the southern Vietnamese city of Danang in November for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

The Moon-Quang summit is scheduled to be held Friday and will be followed by separate meetings with three other Vietnamese national leaders, according to Moon's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. They are Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party; National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan; and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Moon's trip here began with a visit to Vietnam's national football team, which is led by South Korean coach Park Hang-seo.

Park's team finished second in the Asian Football Confederation U-23 Championship held in China in January.

"It was so deplorable to see it snow," Moon said of the championship final, in which Vietnam lost to Uzbekistan 1-2.

"Vietnamese players must not have had too much experience with snow. They would have won had it not snowed," he told Park.

In an earlier interview with Vietnam's official newspaper, The People, the South Korean president said Park and his team's recent achievement demonstrated the joint strength of the two countries.

"I am glad for the team in that it symbolically showed through sport the 'South Korea-Vietnam magic' that Vietnam and South Korea can achieve anything when they join their strength," he said.

On Friday, Moon will attend a state dinner to be hosted by his Vietnamese counterpart, Quang.

The trip marks Moon's second to a Southeast Asian nation after his state visit to Indonesia late last year.

The South Korean president has pledged to visit all 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which together form an important part of his New South Policy that seeks to expand the focus of Seoul's international policy to its Asian neighbors.

The purpose of Moon's trip to Vietnam is twofold, as Seoul is moving to greatly boost its economic ties with one of the fastest growing economies in the Southeast Asian region.

Bilateral trade between South Korea and Vietnam came to US$63.9 billion in 2017, Moon said earlier.

Seoul seeks to increase the trade volume to more than $100 billion by 2020.

South Korea is already Vietnam's second-largest trading partner, and Vietnam is South Korea's fourth-largest.

"South Korea will continue to seek ways to boost its cooperation with Vietnam so that it can contribute to realizing Vietnam's goal of building an industrialized modern nation by 2020," Moon said in his interview with the Vietnamese newspaper.

On Saturday, the South Korean president will head to the second and last destination in his two-nation tour, the United Arab Emirates, for a four-day state visit.

bdk@yna.co.kr
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