CAIRO: The presidents of Egypt and South Korea pledged Tuesday to work to boost relations and increase the volume of trade between their countries that amounted last year to around $850 million. President Hosni Mubarak and his visiting South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun also covered international and regional issues, especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Iraq. The consultations touched on the steady growth indicators for cooperation in various fields, especially with regard to trade exchanges and cooperation in investment, industry, petroleum and gas, Mubarak said at a joint news conference with Roh. South Korea exported $700 million worth of goods to Egypt in 2005, while Egyptian exports to South Korea amounted to only $150 million, according to official figures. Cairo, which established full diplomatic ties with Seoul in 1995, hopes to lure more South Korean investments, which is currently estimated at $150 million. Roh, who arrived for a four-day visit on Monday and will also visit Nigeria and Algeria, expressed interest in consolidating cooperation with Egypt as a gateway to both the Arab world and Africa. He agreed that the volume of bilateral trade and South Korean investments in Egypt did not reflect the strong ties between their countries. What needed to be done, Roh explained, was to provide Korean businessmen with more information on investment opportunities in Egypt and the prospects for joint projects. Some 45,000 South Korean tourists visited Egypt in 2005, up from 24,000 in 2001, the official MENA news agency reported. Roh is scheduled to meet Nigerian President Olusengun Obasanjo in Abuja on Friday and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algiers on March 12. His African tour marks the first trip by any South Korean head of state to the region since 1982, when then president Chun Doo-Hwan visited Nigeria, Gabon, Senegal and Kenya. AFP
Egypt, South Korea pledge to boost trade ties
