South Korean foreign minister calls for deeper AI cooperation with Central Asia
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun called for deeper cooperation with Central Asian countries in strategic resources, supply chains, artificial intelligence and other promising areas. According to The Korea Herald, he made the remarks ahead of the first South Korea–Central Asia summit, scheduled for Wednesday. Leaders of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are expected to attend.
Critical minerals and supply chains
In an article for Yonhap News Agency, Cho Hyun said the summit could lay the foundation for a partnership for the next 30 years, building on the mutual trust and cooperation of the previous three decades. South Korea established diplomatic relations with the five Central Asian countries in 1992. In 2007, it launched the Korea–Central Asia Cooperation Forum, which was elevated to the ministerial level in 2019.
According to the minister, South Korea's trade turnover with the region's five countries exceeded $10 billion for the first time last year. Trade is expanding from consumer goods to supply chains and high-tech industries. Cho Hyun believes that South Korea's industrial and technological potential can complement the substantial resources and growing markets of Central Asian countries.
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Digital transformation and people-to-people contacts
The minister also called for developing cooperation in digital transformation, green industries and climate change response. He emphasized the strategic importance of ties with Central Asia for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, noting that the five countries had supported the peninsula's denuclearization and Seoul's position on peace and stability.
He identified people-to-people contacts as a separate area. According to figures he cited, Central Asia is home to about 310,000 Koryo-saram, or ethnic Koreans, as well as about 5,000 Korean businesspeople and overseas Koreans. About 150,000 students and industrial workers from Central Asia are in South Korea. Cho Hyun linked further cooperation to a new stage of relations that goes beyond the historic Silk Road.
