Korea Post, C. Asia to Cooperate
By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Cooperation between Korea and Central Asian nations is picking up, with stepped up exchanges in the areas of development and application of postal IT technology, and joint research on overall service improvement.
Korea Post, the nation's postal service, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), Wednesday, for cooperation in the business with representatives from Mongolia, Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan during a meeting on Jeju Island.
CEOs from the five countries pledged mutual cooperation, including increasing the exchange of information and exports at the meeting. Aiming to better promote exchanges in postal IT, the conference was launched last year in Mongolia.
Representatives made presentations on each nation's postal status during Tuesday's general session. Seminars on future development also took place, aimed at sharing achievements and the experiences of participating countries.
In recent years, state-run Korea Post has been active in rapidly emerging Central Asia.
The office invited Kazakh and Mongolian officers in 2006 and 2007 to witness Korea's cutting-edge postal system, and held CEO-level talks in Kazakhstan in April this year to support local firms' improvement. Korea Post established a postal IT export facilitation team in March 2006 and has dispatched it to seven foreign countries.
Consequently, SK C&C, a technology service arm of Korea's SK Group, won a 5.8-billion won ($3.9 million) bid in May to modernize Kazakhstan's postal service.
Korea Post, originally part of the now defunct Ministry of Information and Communication until the previous government, was transferred to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy under a reorganization plan. It helped the office's move to new territory stretching beyond Korea.
The office signed 120 billion won in foreign contracts in 2007, and aims to triple the figure to 400 billion won this year.
During the conference, Korea Post will run a training program on Korea's major IT systems and facilities. It will also hold a presentation Thursday, offering Korean postal IT firms an opportunity to promote their products to participating countries.
"Efforts will continue to help postal-related Korean companies' advancement into Central Asia," continue, Korea Post CEO Jung Kyung-won said. "That is our job in the business, to pave the way through support and promotions."