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| President Moon Jae-in shakes hands with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera after holding a joint press conference at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. Yonhap |
By Kim Yoo-chul
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera promised to support South Korea's bid to obtain associate member status in the Pacific Alliance, an economic bloc of four Latin American nations, during a summit with President Moon Jae-in at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday.
South Korea, which is currently an observer of the Pacific Alliance, wants to become an associate member to expand trade with the region.
At the summit, Moon told his Chilean counterpart about Seoul's keen interest in becoming an associate member of the Pacific Alliance. The Chilean leader positively responded to the request, saying his country will have thorough discussions over the matter with other members of the economic bloc, Cheong Wa Dae said in a press release.
Chile will take the role of "rotating chair" of the trade alliance, which includes Mexico, Colombia and Peru, in the latter half of this year. In 2012, the four nations launched the bloc, which represents a market of 215 million people, 40 percent of Latin America's GDP and 52 percent of regional trade.
During a joint press conference after the summit, Moon said, "South Korea wants to build its free trade agreement network connecting the Asia-Pacific region to Latin America by obtaining member status within the Pacific Alliance."
In response to Moon's remarks, the Chilean leader said all bloc members are on track to expand commercial networks and said the Latin American country will move forward in setting "high-standard free trade."
Pinera arrived here, Sunday, for a two-day state visit after attending the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. He's the first leader of a Latin American country to visit South Korea since Moon took power in 2017.
The two countries also agreed to expand collaboration in emerging business areas such as those linked to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and advanced network technologies.
Cheong Wa Dae officials said follow-up working-level talks will focus primarily on addressing challenges on several fronts such as high logistics costs, relatively low mutual cultural awareness, different levels of institutionalization in each bloc, potentially competing national interests and inadequate infrastructure.
Separately, the Chilean leader remained supportive of President Moon's drive to bring lasting peace to the Korean Peninsula, the Cheong Wa Dae statement added.
The two countries signed an agreement on defense cooperation and three non-binding memoranda of understanding (MOUs). Moon said Seoul will support Chile's efforts to tackle climate-related issues. Chile plans to host a United Nations climate summit, better known as COP25, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in its capital, Santiago, later this year.
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