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| President Moon Jae-in bumps fists with his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev during their summit at Cheong Wa Dae, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap |
By Nam Hyun-woo
President Moon Jae-in and his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev pledged to strengthen their two countries' cooperation in rare metal trading and energy infrastructure, as part of Moon's bid to improve the industrial stability of Korea, which has few raw materials and is thus vulnerable to impacts on global supply chains.
"The two countries are special strategic partners, and are engaged in many businesses such as agricultural machinery, energy infrastructure and power plants among others," Moon said. "A total of 910 Korean firms in the fields of automobile parts, electronics, communication and finance are operating in Uzbekistan."
"On the occasion of President Mirziyoyev's visit to Korea, we will sign important pacts and MOUs, which are aimed at strengthening cooperation in healthcare, energy and rare metal supplies. Also, the two countries will join hands in areas of future growth, such as smart cities, smart farms, information technology and electric vehicles."
"Our two countries have been implementing all agreements with each other," Mirziyoyev said. "The bilateral trade and the number of joint ventures between the two countries have doubled. Korea's accumulated investments into Uzbekistan have surpassed $7 billion. ... I believe this visit is the latest extent of the two countries' concentrated talks and a good opportunity to check on pending bilateral issues and explore ways to diversify cooperation."
The summit came on the occasion of Mirziyoyev's state visit to Korea. This was the fourth summit between the two leaders, following a virtual summit in January. Moon paid a state visit to Uzbekistan in April 2019, and the two sides have elevated their bilateral ties to a "special strategic partnership."
Uzbekistan is the fourth country for Korea to form such relations with, following India in May 2015, Indonesia in November 2017 and the United Arab Emirates in March 2018.
During the summit, the leaders agreed to cooperate on rare metal supplies, with a Korea-Uzbekistan research center for rare metals playing a key role. Through this, Korea will diversify its supply sources for rare metals, and Uzbekistan will industrialize its rare metal resources as a value added business, according to Cheong Wa Dae.
The presidential office said it seeks to expand the cooperation model with Uzbekistan to other countries including Kazakhstan and Mongolia to improve the stability of Korea's rare metals supply.
"With the Korea-Uzbekistan research center on rare metals, which was established in April 2019, the two countries agreed to link Uzbekistan's natural resources such as copper, tungsten and molybdenum with Korea's advanced processing technologies, in order to jointly develop technologies for producing materials for advanced industries," a joint statement between the two leaders said.
Recently, Moon has been strengthening his diplomatic efforts to diversify Korea's import sources for mineral ores, rare metals and other industrial materials, in a recognition that rapidly changing political and economic dynamics in the global society critically affects Korea's economy, which relies heavily on trade. Earlier this week, Moon had a summit with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to strengthen the two countries' cooperation on various fronts including the supply of mineral ores.
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| President Moon Jae-in and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev inspect an honor guard during a ceremony to officially welcome the latter to Cheong Wa Dae, Friday. Yonhap |
During Friday's summit, Moon asked for the Uzbek government's attention and support for Korean firms' participation in large-scale energy infrastructure projects in Uzbekistan, including the modernization of a gas plant in Mubarek.
The project aims to upgrade the plant to a 300 megawatt capacity and Korean builder SK Ecoplant secured the exclusive right to develop the project in February.
The two leaders also acknowledged the importance of cooperation in the healthcare and medical sectors, and agreed to share two countries' related experience and technologies
Mirziyoyev told Moon that the Korean government's support was needed assistance in Uzbekistan's battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. From March to May 2020, two Korean experts on infectious disease were dispatched to Uzbekistan, and one of them, Prof. Choi Jae-wook at Korea University's College of Medicine, was awarded the First Class Health Medal from the Uzbek government.
Moon cited the opening of Uzbekistan's National Children's Medical Center and the construction of a national cancer center and other hospitals as an outcome of the two countries' medical cooperation, adding Korea wishes to contribute to Uzbekistan's healthcare programs.
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