The visit was dedicated to discussion of perspectives of further development of financial-economic and investment cooperation between two states in context of preparation to upcoming visit of the President of Uzbekistan to South Korea, UzA reported.

Within the negotiations in Tashkent, the Korean official highly rated level of bilateral relations.

During the talks, the sides exchanged opinion on wide range of issues, related to expanding long-term bilateral financial-economic and investment cooperation. In the result of the talks, the sides inked a memorandum of understanding between Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan and Ministry of Strategy and Finance of South Korea.

The memorandum reflects main parameters of programme of cooperation with the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) of South Korea for 2012-2015 due to providing soft long-term loans for US$595 million.

In particular, the sides agreed on priority of implementation of the project on creation of children medical center with its equipment with high level diagnostic, treatment and other special equipment, and creation of national general educational electronic library through digitalizing educational, scientific, scientific-popular and other books, first of all resources of National Library of Uzbekistan named after Alisher Navoi.

Besides, the projects of cooperation include equipment of National TV Channels with digital equipment, development of modern material-technical bases of the secondary and vocational education, and improvement of efficiency of use of energy resources.

South Korean Finance Minister said that Uzbekistan is among few countries, which determined as partner country on exchange of experience and knowledge by the South Korean Government.

In this connection, the sides included projects on introduction of electronic state budget system and development of treasury, increasing efficiency of the state property management and public procurement, expanding use of information technologies to activities of tax and customs bodies to the programme of joint technical assistance projects.

The sides also noted importance of close cooperation within such international financial institutions such as International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, as well as multilateral initiatives to ensure currency and financial stability in Asia.

Bahk Jae-wan stated that leadership of South Korea is waiting for upcoming state visit of the Uzbek President with anxiety and great interest, which should help to rate achieved results in bilateral cooperation and determine concrete directions and tasks on further strengthening and expanding long-term strategic partnership between two states.

The visit will serve as evidence for traditional close economic and business relations between Uzbekistan and South Korea, as well as will stimulate further growth of financial and investment cooperation between two states.

In the result of the talks, the sides agreed to hold regular meetings between finance ministries of two states to expand financial-economic and investment cooperation.

Currently, total volume of investments of South Korea to Uzbekistan exceeded US$5 billion and bilateral trade turnover rose by 47% year-on-year in the first half of 2012. There are currently 400 companies with participation of South Korean firms.