A team of business people and state officials from South Korea visited Vietnam last week to discuss large-scale projects such as urban development and high-speed rail.

South Korea hopes to tap into Vietnam’s extensive urbanisation and infrastructure plans, Business Korea reports.

South Korean infrastructure minister Park Sang-woo met Vietnam’s minister of construction Nguyen Thanh Nghi in Hanoi to discuss the Dong Nam New Town in Bac Ninh Province, northern Vietnam.

It aims to create an 8.5-sq-km new town with 156,000 residents between 2025 and 2060. It’s billed as a sustainable “smart city” with advanced infrastructure, housing and services.

Park said government support would be crucial for the project, for which Korea is hoping to supply hardware and software.

Nguyen Thanh Nghi highlighted Vietnam’s urbanisation goals. “We aim to increase our urbanisation rate from the current 43% to 45% by 2025 and 50% by 2030,” he said. He noted the Vietnamese government’s recent approval of a plan to build 100,000 social housing units for industrial park workers and low-income groups by 2030.

The Korean team sought to win work on Vietnam’s $57bn North-South high-speed rail project, set to become the transport backbone of the country.

Park said: “We will continue to cooperate with Vietnam to successfully implement the Dong Nam New Town project with Korean technology and to secure a leading position in the North-South high-speed railway construction project with government-level support.”

The two ministers signed a memorandum of understanding on urban and housing development and another on the implementation plan for smart city and social housing construction.

Some 200 representatives from Korean and Vietnamese companies and agencies took part in events during the visit.