Seoul Mayor Oh to go on 11-day trip to key European cities
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon delivers a speech at a forum in Seoul, Oct. 18. Yonhap
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon will go on an 11-day trip to Europe this week that will bring him to major city development sites in key European cities and a global meeting of Olympic host cities, officials said Thursday.
Starting Friday, Oh will visit Paris and then Lausanne and Basel of Switzerland, as well as Spain's Madrid and Seville, and the Netherlands' Amsterdam and Rotterdam, according to the officials.
In the French capital, Oh will visit the International Garden Festival of Chaumont sur Loire and the city's central district near the Champs-Elysees street and the Concorde plaza, where a city project to build green spaces is under way.
The mayor will also have a meeting with Marc-Antoine Jamet, the president of Cosmetic Valley, a French business cluster specialized in cosmetics, to discuss the possibility of Korean firms making inroads into European markets.
In Lausanne, Oh will attend an annual meeting of the World Union of Olympic Cities and meet with key International Olympic Committee officials to promote Seoul's bid to host the 2036 Summer Olympics.
In Spain, the mayor will visit Rio Park in Madrid and hold a meeting with Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida before moving to Seville, where he will tour one of the city's landmarks, Metropol Parasol.
On the final leg in the Netherlands, the mayor plans to tour city landmarks in Rotterdam, including the Floating Office Rotterdam and the Maritime District, known for its cluster of high-rise seaside architecture.
The mayor will also hold a meeting with Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema and tour the Zuidas business district and other landmarks in the capital, the city officials said.
"The latest trip is expected to provide various policy ideas for Seoul's key projects so that (Oh) will be able to make policy proposals aimed at making Seoul an attractive city where global citizens want to live in, visit and invest in," a city official said. (Yonhap)