On September 16, the first Central Asia–Republic of Korea Summit took place in Seoul.
The event, chaired by President of the Republic of Korea Lee Jae Myung, was attended by President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov, and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
The leaders considered prospects for expanding mutually beneficial cooperation between the Central Asian states and the Republic of Korea in priority areas, including security, practical cooperation based on complementary strengths, and the expansion of humanitarian exchanges.
In his address, the President of Uzbekistan put forward proposals in strategic areas of cooperation.
Mirziyoyev supported the initiative to establish a platform for meetings of ministers responsible for industry and trade, which will enable the participating countries to jointly identify effective solutions for significantly increasing mutual trade and bringing trade between the countries of the region and Korea to $20 billion by 2030.
As part of efforts to strengthen industrial and investment cooperation, the Uzbek President expressed readiness to establish the “Central Asia–Korea” Industrial and Technological Park in Uzbekistan, which will serve as an innovation and production base for the regional market.
The establishment of direct partnerships between the regions of the participating countries was identified as an important driver of economic cooperation. In this regard, representatives of regional authorities and businesses from all countries were invited to take part in the Third Interregional Forum of Central Asia and Korea, to be held next year in Samarkand.
Another important area is cooperation on critical minerals.
“Given the rapidly growing global demand for these valuable resources and the region’s vast reserves of critical minerals, Central Asia has the potential to become one of the world’s leading suppliers,” stated the Uzbek leader. Mirziyoyev proposed establishing a Regional Investment Alliance for Critical Minerals aimed at creating strong processing clusters across the region, covering the entire value chain – from geological exploration to the deep processing of raw materials and the production of high value-added goods.
In his address at the summit, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev identified trade, economic and investment cooperation as the first priority.
“Last year, trade between Central Asia and Korea exceeded 10 billion US dollars for the first time, and Kazakhstan accounts for almost half of the region’s total trade turnover [with Korea],” he said.
Tokayev identified the development of transportation and logistics capabilities as another priority. In his view, amid profound changes in the global supply chain, Central Asia’s role as a vital link between East and West has grown.
“Kazakhstan has set a goal of increasing total transit volumes through its territory to 100 million tons. In this context, we attach particular emphasis on the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, often referred to as the Middle Corridor. Over the past six years, freight volumes along this corridor have increased fivefold. In the foreseeable future, we intend to raise its capacity to 20 million tons. In our view, it is possible to integrate the Middle Corridor with the TRIPP transport initiative. Within this framework, Korea carries out multimodal transport to Central Asia via the Kazakhstan–China logistics terminal at the Port of Lianyungang. I believe it is possible to combine the potential of these routes and establish an end-to-end transport and logistics chain from Korea through Central Asia to Europe. In this regard, close cooperation between the Port of Busan and Kazakhstan’s Caspian ports holds great promise in terms of sharing best practices and information,” said Tokayev.
Photo: president.tj
