PM to visit South Korea
ASTANA. July 13. KAZINFORM /Aigul Tulekbayeva/ On July 19-21 Prime Minister Karim Massimov will pay an official visit to the Republic of Korea, official spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yerzhan Ashikbayev has informed at a weekly briefing today.
According to him, the program of the visit includes negotiations on expanding cooperation in trade-economic sphere as well as realization of the agreements reached following the state visit of Lee Myung-bak to Kazakhstan on May 12-14, 2009.
As is known, during the visit to Kazakhstan Lee Myung-bak announced Korea's interest in expanding cooperation in IT technologies, in particular, implementation of Korea wireless wideband Internet.
In turn, Kazakhstan invited the South Korean partners to take part in development of breakthrough projects in non-primary sector: in the field of renewable energy sources, IT-industry, chemical industry, cargo transportation. An Action Plan on deepening cooperation between the two countries was signed in May. The agreement between Samrukenergo and KEPCO Samsung on construction of Balkhash Thermal Power Plant is one of the most important documents signed during Korean President's visit to Kazakhstan. The volume of investments to this project will comprise USD 4.5 bln.
In 2008 mutual commodity turnover between Kazakhstan and South Korea made USD 750 mln. Gross inflow of direct investments from the South Korea to Kazakhstan made USD 3 bln in 1993-2008. 300 joint enterprises with the participation of Korean capital are functioning in our country. They are Samsung, LG International, LG Electronics and Urim, Hanjin construction companies.