As earlier reported, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov traveled to the Republic of Korea with a state visit on 19-21 September at the invitation of President Lee Myung-Bak.

On 21 September, Uzbek President Islam Karimov met with Kang Chang-hee, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. The two officials exchanged views on parliamentary reforms underway in our two countries, and underscored shared willingness to enhance the bilateral trade-economic and investment cooperation.

President Islam Karimov and the Speaker Kang Chang-hee highly appreciated the role of the two nations’ legislatures in upholding the high level of bilateral strategic partnership.

The parties to talks vowed to intensify inter-parliamentary interaction, expand contacts between diverse parliamentary bodies of the two countries, increase exchange of information and experience in the related sphere.

President Islam Karimov also held negotiations with Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea Kim Hwang-sik.

As the Uzbek leader put it, the established business partnership has been critically instrumental in buttressing the Uzbek-South Korean multilayered economic cooperation. Islam Karimov stressed in particular that our two economies do not pose as competitors for one another, but rather reinforce each other in various aspects.

The President of Uzbekistan and the Prime Minister of South Korea underlined their high approval of the growth rates in bilateral trade-economic interaction. To date, in excess of 400 joint ventures are created in Uzbekistan, including 64 with a hundred-percent South Korean capital. With an energetic participation of Korean business representatives, a range of strategic projects have been underway in our country, including the construction of a four-billion-dollar Ustyurt Gas Chemical Complex at the Surgil Deposit as well as the intermodal logistics complex in Navoi.

Islam Karimov and Kim Hwang-sik expressed mutual willingness to further assist the expansion of the scope of interaction between our two nations on diverse fronts.

During the visit, President Islam Karimov also met with Minister of Public Administration and Security of the Republic of Korea Maeng Hyung-kyu, the Chief Executive Officer of POSCO Corporation Chung Joon-Yang, the Chairman and CEO of Korean Air and Hanjin Group of Companies Cho Yangho. These meetings served to discuss issues pertinent to bolstering the trade and economic cooperation, engaging the leading South Korean companies in schemes designed to develop new deposits of raw minerals, to boost transport and communications systems, logistics and information technologies.