President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov met with Yoo Jeong-bok, Minister of Security and Public Administration of the Republic of Korea, at the Oqsaroy on July 2.



In the wake of the meeting, the head of our state noted that the current visit constitutes a bright manifestation of the South Korean leadership’s commitment to the comprehensive development of mutually advantageous cooperation with Uzbekistan.

One of the leading investors into our economy, South Korea is currently regarded as Uzbekistan’s most important trade partner in Asia Pacific. In 2012, the volume of bilateral trade grew by 31 percent to reach 2.1 billion US dollars. The amount of investments made by South Korea into the Uzbek economy has exceeded six billion dollars.

401 enterprises established with the participation of Korean businesses and 88 representative offices of major South Korean companies are currently operating in our country.

The sphere of information and communications technologies has in recent years been gaining priority in the interaction between our two nations. During President Islam Karimov’s September 2012 state visit to the Republic of Korea, the two sides inked a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in IT area. South Korea is a leading country in IT, including the introduction of a system of electronic government. Uzbekistan has been displaying significant progress in bolstering telecommunications networks, boosting interactive public services provided by government, and introducing digital television.

Projected for the 2013-2020 period, a government action plan has been approved to foster an integrated development of information and communications system in Uzbekistan, which maps out such goals as ensuring the population’s ability to interact with government agencies via electronic means and introducing the mechanism of “single window” in public administration. A particularly crucial significance on this front is increasingly attached to the establishment of joint ventures to produce essential software and information systems, along with cooperation in retraining the personnel of government agencies.

During the conversation at the Oqsaroy, the discussion also included other issues relating to the interaction between Uzbekistan and South Korea in IT.

Yoo Jeong-bok expressed gratitude to the head of our state for a warm welcome and stressed that the Republic of Korea, and the Ministry of Security and Public Administration in particular, are interested in the development of long-term mutually advantageous cooperation with Uzbekistan across spheres. (Source: Press service of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan)