By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
South Korea is seeking to build a logistics center in Russia's Posiet, a harbor city located near the border with North Korea, for South Korean firms hoping to use Russian railways for exports to Europe.
``We've requested Russia to consider our plan to build logistics facilities and docks for Korean ships in Russia's Far East. We prefer Posiet as the site for the logistics center,'' President Lee Myung-bak said. ``The center, if constructed, will help Korean firms cut logistics costs significantly for exports to Europe. It will make Korean firms much more competitive on European markets.''
Lee made the comments at a breakfast meeting in Moscow Tuesday with Korean reporters. Lee held a summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and met with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Monday, to discuss measures to foster stronger economic and diplomatic ties between South Korea and Russia.
Lee said senior government officials of the two countries will start working-level negotiations soon over Seoul's bid to set up a logistics center there.
Posiet is located north of the Tumen River, the border between Russia and North Korea. The two communist allies have engaged in talks to redraw their border along the river as the terrain has changed over time.
Seoul and Moscow agreed Monday to push for a joint project to link a trans-Korean railway to the trans-Siberian railway at the summit.
They also agreed to set up a pipeline linking Russia to South Korea through North Korea by 2015 to enable Seoul to receive about 7.5 million tons of natural gas per year from Russia.
The South Korean President said North Korea will show an interest in the proposed ventures between South Korea and Russia.
The economic benefits the projects will bring to the North could be far larger than the inter-Korean cooperation projects in Gaeseong and Mount Geumgang, he said.
``With a common understanding that the potential for bilateral cooperation is enormous, I and Medvedev concurred on the need to bolster collaboration to elicit concrete and substantive accomplishments in a wide range of fields, including the expansion of trade and investments and an increase in energy and resource cooperation as well as a partnership in space science and technology,'' Lee said.
Touching on the current global financial turmoil, the President forecast that his government's preemptive measures will eventually help stabilize the Korean financial market.
``The turmoil on Wall Street has shaken global markets. However, South Korea has suffered less damage than other markets because of the government's preemptive actions,'' Lee said.