President Lee Myung-bak met with Bahrain Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa on Tuesday and discussed ways to bolster economic and other relations between the two countries, the presidential office said.

Salman arrived in Seoul Monday for a four-day visit at the invitation of South Korean Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik. The prince is the highest-level Bahrain official ever to visit South Korea.

During their meeting, Lee said relations between the two countries have steadily moved forward since the 1976 establishment of diplomatic relations, and asked for the prince's support for South Korean firms trying to expand in the Middle Eastern nation, the office said in a release.

Lee also expressed gratitude for Bahrain's support of South Korea's reopening of its diplomatic mission in the country. Korea closed the mission in 1996 in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and reopened the office in December, it said.

Salman spoke highly of South Korea's economic development experience and expressed hopes to expand economic cooperation, human exchanges and other cooperation, the office said.

On the sidelines of his visit, South Korea and Bahrain signed a dual taxation prevention treaty, the office said. (Yonhap)