President of South Korea Moon Jae-in held an official welcoming ceremony for President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at his residence in Seoul on December 17.
In honor of the high-ranking guest and his spouse, Ziroat Mirziyoyeva, a guard of honor was lined and the national anthems of the two countries were played.
Then, the two leaders held talks with the participation of official delegations of the two countries.
Welcoming Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the President of the Republic of Korea stressed that Seoul attaches great importance to the further development of cooperation with Tashkent in all areas.
“The two countries are special strategic partners, and are engaged in many businesses such as agricultural machinery, energy infrastructure and power plants among others,” the Korea Times quotes Moon as saying.
Currently, 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,” the President of South Korea noted.
“Our two countries have been implementing all agreements with each other,” Shavkat 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.”
This is 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.”
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.
“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.
