South Korean Ambassador to Egypt Hong Jin-wook said that Egypt, the cradle of civilization, is one of South Koreans’ most favourite bucket list destinations.
He added that cultural heritage is a very promising area which can diversify the two countries’ cooperation and enhance their people-to-people mutual understanding.
His remarks came after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cultural heritage exchanges and cooperation between the Korean Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) and its Egyptian counterpart, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) at the Al-Manial Palace.
Notably, The MoU stipulates future plans to cooperate in all areas of cultural heritage, including conducting archaeological excavation and restoration (including underwater archaeology), fighting against the illicit trade of cultural properties, supporting in the application of digital technology and official development assistance (ODA) projects, cooperation in inscribing new UNESCO World Heritage sites, and exchanging academic, human, and material resources.
The signees from the two parties, Secretary-General Mostafa Waziri and Administrator Kim Hyun-mo had a meeting one day before the signing ceremony at the Karnak Temple in Luxor and discussed how to strengthen cooperation in the area of cultural heritage between two countries by applying Korea’s outstanding conservation and restoration technology of stone cultural heritage to restore the Ramesseum Temple, a World Heritage Site, and digitising and building a platform for the collection of Egypt’s six important museums and research institutes like the Egyptian Museum, Coptic Museum, Archaeological Research Centre, etc.
Commenting on the MoU, the Hong said that he was more than pleased that the two organisations’ hard work and the Korean Embassy’s continuous support have come to fruition with the first ever MoU in this field and he would like to convey his deepest appreciation to Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Anany, former Antiquities Minister and renowned archaeologist Zahi Hawass, and SCA Secretary-General Mostafa Waziri for putting their hands together.
