SEOUL - South Korea's finance minister Choi Sang-mok on Friday asked his Vietnamese counterpart to take policy measures to help resolve what he described as difficulties facing Korean companies making investments in the Southeast Asian country.

In a meeting with Vietnamese finance minister Ho Duc Phoc in Seoul, Choi asked for increased tax incentives and to ensure the prevention of double taxation for companies, South Korea's finance ministry said in a statement.

Choi said he hoped for an expansion in investment between the countries, which are the third-largest trading partners in both cases.

Their meeting comes amid concerns from large multinational companies over an absence of subsidies to help offset the cost of a new top-up tax introduced by Hanoi.

Vietnam has become a major destination for global companies relocating activity from China and South Korean companies have been the top direct investors.

Samsung, for example, is the biggest single foreign investor in Vietnam, employing 160,000 people and producing half of its smartphones in the country, accounting for nearly one fifth of the nation's total exports.

(Reporting by Jihoon Lee, Editing by Ed Davies)