2.
The heads of the ROK’s diplomatic missions shared the view that in order to achieve the Park Geun-hye government’s policy goals of economic revival and happiness for the people through sustainable economic growth and job creation, each overseas diplomatic mission needs to serve as an outpost to assist the ROK companies, especially small and medium-sized ones, in entering foreign markets.
They also agreed on the need to find areas where the ROK can provide substantive help for each country and pursue sales diplomacy based on mutual trust and reciprocity.
o The participants shared the view that the ROK needs to pursue sales diplomacy tailored to the situations in each Latin American bloc/country through close cooperation between the Foreign Ministry and relevant agencies.
To this end, they discussed demands for cooperation in each country and the ROK’s strategies for sales diplomacy.
3.
The heads of the ROK’s diplomatic missions noted that Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru, four representative countries in Latin America that pursue an open economy, launched the Pacific Alliance in June, 2012 and are actively seeking to strengthen their competitiveness through an open and free trade system and enhance cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region.
They agreed on the need for the ROK to take advantage of the Alliance to help more ROK companies enter the Latin American market.
o The participants also concluded that it is important for the ROK, which joined the Pacific Alliance as an observer in June, 2013, to continue to play an active role as an observer and promote cooperation with the Alliance, which accounts for 42 percent of Latin America’s total trade volume.
4.
Furthermore, the heads of the ROK’s diplomatic missions in Latin America shared the view that it is crucial to establish dialogue mechanisms with member states of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), to strengthen cooperation with major countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, and to make efforts to improve relations with resource-abundant countries, including Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.
In particular, they agreed that the ROK needs to expand bilateral and multilateral cooperation channels between governments and private sectors in the area of science and technology, where Latin American countries want to boost cooperation with the ROK.
5.
During his visit to Colombia, Vice Minister Kim also paid a courtesy call on Colombian Foreign Minister Holguin.
The two sides agreed to continue to expand the ROK-Colombia strategic cooperative partnership based on trust and alliance forged in blood following Colombia’s participation in the Korean War.
They also agreed to work toward the swift completion of procedures for ratifying the ROK-Colombia FTA at the two countries’ parliaments and to hold consultations to find specific areas for cooperation between the ROK and the Pacific Alliance.
o In addition, Vice Minister Kim requested the Colombian government’s much interest and support to help more ROK companies with world-class levels of competitiveness participate in the country’s various infrastructure projects.
