Honorary Consuls Bridge Korea to World
By Yoon Won-sup
Staff Reporter
Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Song Min-soon invited the corps of honorary consuls to his residence in Hannam-dong, Seoul on Saturday for a dinner meeting.
Song thanked the corps for their contribution to relations between Korea and the countries they represent, and explained current foreign affairs involving the Korean Peninsula.
Honorary consuls of 32 nations and their wives participated in the dinner with the ministry's senior officials including director-generals representing each region of the world and the spokesman.
Currently, there are 110 honorary consuls working for 94 foreign countries, who promote bilateral relations in the economic and cultural fields because they have better contact points with Koreans.
Song encouraged them to work for the sake of better relations between Korea and other countries, with their unique position and expertise. In response, the honorary consuls unanimously agreed that they are working for that purpose.
``We have mobilized our own support for national events such as PyeongChang's bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games with our own human networks,'' said Cho Hae-hyeong, dean of the corps of honorary consuls and chairman of Nara Holdings Corp. ``This is our role as honorary consuls.''