Kazakhstan and South Korea: New qualitative relations in new time
Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu held bilateral talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea Park Jin, who arrived to our country on an official visit, El.kz cites MFA.
The parties discussed the state and prospects for the development of Kazakh-South Korean cooperation in political, trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian spheres as well as interaction in a multilateral format.
Minister Nurtleu noted that the Republic of Korea is one of Kazakhstan's key partners in Asia. “The development of a partnership with South Korea based on friendship and mutual trust is one of the most important priorities of our country's foreign policy. We are fully ready to create favorable conditions for Korean companies wishing to work in Kazakhstan,” the Kazakh Minister said.
In turn, Minister Park Jin said that Seoul intended to develop the Korean-Kazakh expanded strategic partnership on the basis of the established reliable relations between the two countries. He highly appreciated the socio-economic reforms and political transformations carried out in Kazakhstan. “We will continue to provide all possible support to Kazakhstan in matters of economic development based on our experience,” the South Korean Foreign Minister said.
The interlocutors expressed mutual interest in further strengthening cooperation between the two countries, including by increasing trade, economic and investment cooperation. The two-fold increase in mutual trade turnover was noted with satisfaction, which reached 6.1 billion US dollars by the end of 2022.
South Korea is the second largest trading partner of our country in Asia, and is also one of the ten largest investors in Kazakhstan. In 2022 the volume of Korean direct investments in the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan reached 1.5 billion US dollars, which is the largest indicator in the history of bilateral investment cooperation. 740 companies with the participation of Korean business have been registered in Kazakhstan and 28 major projects have been implemented.
Special attention was paid to the role of the Korean diaspora in the Republic of Kazakhstan, which serves as a “golden bridge” and contributes to strengthening friendship between the two countries. Today, more than 119 thousand ethnic Koreans live in Kazakhstan.
At the same time, the Foreign Ministers of Kazakhstan and South Korea indicated that the countries adhere to similar positions on many regional and international issues, and mutual support has been established in multilateral diplomacy.
A separate topic of the talks was the issues of ensuring the labor and migration rights of citizens of the two countries. Minister Nurtleu drew attention to the importance of ensuring the legal employment of Kazakh citizens in South Korea, especially the inclusion of Kazakhstan in the Korean “System of Labor Permits”.
For continuous and consistent work on all issues of interest to the sides, a Memorandum of Understanding on Bilateral Cooperation between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs for 2023-2024 has been signed.
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