President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov received the Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Korea Hon Yun-sik at the Oqsaroy on 17 August. 

Warmly greeting the guest, the head of our state has noted that Uzbekistan highly values and attaches priority significance to further strengthening relations of strategic partnership with the Republic of Korea. Islam Karimov expressed confidence that this visit will support enhancement of a mutually beneficial cooperation, first of all, in the sphere of improving the public administration and introducing an E-government system. 

The state visits of President of the Republic of Korea Park Geun-hye to Tashkent in June 2014 and President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov to Seoul in May 2015 have given great impetus to the comprehensive development of a full-scale interaction between the two states, first of all, in an economic sphere. 

Following these visits, over 100 bilateral documents were signed, including agreements on a trade-economic, investment, technological and financial cooperation for the total amount of over 9,5 billion US dollars. 

 

South Korea is one of the main investment and technological partners of Uzbekistan. Large investment projects have been implemented and under realization in oil and gas, electrotechnics, textile spheres, production of construction materials, pharmaceuticals with GM Korea, Korean Air, Kogas, Lotte, GS, Posco Daewoo, Samsung, Shindong, KOLON and many other South Korean companies, as trusted traditional partners. 

At present the volume of foreign direct investments of the Republic of Korea to Uzbekistan's economy has exceeded 7 billion US dollars. 440 enterprises with participation of South Korean investments operate in our country, representative offices of 77 companies are accredited. 

It should be especially underlined that an opening ceremony of the Ustyurt Gas Chemical Complex at the Surgil field was held during the visit of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea Hwang Kyo-ahn, which is a true symbol of the Uzbek-Korean investment cooperation. 

Within the cooperation in the sphere of ICT a project on introducing the system "Electronic government" in the Republic of Uzbekistan with the organization of training of specialists in this sphere is being implemented with the involvement of technical assistance from South Korea. In line with the Memorandum of cooperation with LG CNS, signed in June 2014 a joint venture LG CNS Uzbekistan has been established, which is aimed at developing information systems and software for the Electronic government system and the real sector of the economy in the Republic of Uzbekistan. 

Hon Yun-sik expressed sincere gratitude to the head of our state for a warm reception and underscored the readiness of South Korea in comprehensive development of a full-scale and mutually beneficial partnership with Uzbekistan.