The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, concluded yesterday his two-day official visit to South Korea with his participation in the Spain-Korea Business Forum, in which he highlighted the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between CESCE (the Spanish Export Credit Insurance Company) and its Korean counterpart to promote trade and investment between the two countries and met with the President of the Republic, Yoon Suk-yeol, with whom he coincided in his condemnation of the North Korean nuclear tests.
On Thursday, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, dedicated the first day of his official visit to present to Samsung executives the plans of the Executive in semiconductors, to visit the headquarters of the future Cervantes Center in Seoul and to close the XIV Spain-Korea Tribune, in which he highlighted “the interdependence between the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific spaces” in the context of “Putin’s war” and expressed his concern about “North Korea’s nuclear program and its worrying arms escalation”.
Yesterday began with his speech at the Spain-Korea Business Forum, organized by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, the Secretary of State for Trade -through ICEX Spain Export and Investment- and the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), in collaboration with the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and attended by the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, and a high-level Spanish business delegation that traveled to Seoul with the President of the Government. The meeting, which addressed the improvement of bilateral economic relations in sectors such as industrial technology, renewable energies, infrastructures or defense, follows the visit made by Sánchez to Samsung’s semiconductor manufacturing plant and his subsequent meeting with the company’s CEO, Lee Jae-Yong.
In his speech, Pedro Sánchez recalled that Korean investment in Spain “has traditionally come from large conglomerates, the so-called chaebols, and has been concentrated in sectors such as the commercial industry, the chemical industry, civil engineering, as we have seen in the video”. Besides, he continued, “Spanish investment in Korea, although less relevant, is no less important”, and Spanish companies “are committed to Korea in multiple sectors: real estate, automobile, aviation or waste management, which is very important”.
“I believe there is a growing interest in investing in both directions, thanks to the complementarity of our economic fabrics and the development strategies that both countries have recently adopted,” he continued. “In Spain we have Korean companies investing in sectors such as renewable energies or electric battery components, while in Korea there are Spanish companies strengthening their commitment to the offshore wind energy sector,” he added.
In this sense, Sánchez highlighted the relevance of the Memorandum of Understanding signed within the framework of this trip between CESCE and K-SURE, its Korean counterpart, an instrument that “will reinforce the vocation of increasing cooperation to promote trade and investment between Korea and Spain” and will facilitate “the participation of companies from both countries in export operations to third countries”.
Yoon Suk-yeol
Later, Pedro Sánchez was received by President Yoon Suk-yeol, with whom he discussed bilateral relations, elevated since last year to the category of Strategic Partners, and opportunities to expand economic and trade exchanges between the two countries.
During the meeting, Sánchez highlighted the importance of tourism between the two countries, one of the sectors that has grown the most in recent years in bilateral economic relations (Korea is the third largest issuer of tourists from Asia to Spain) and announced, in response to this “growing interest on the part of Korean society”, the “opening of a Turespaña tourism promotion office attached to our embassy in Seoul”. Turespaña already has offices in Tokyo, Beijing and Guangzhou, within the Asia-Pacific region.
Likewise, the president affirmed (during a joint appearance before the media, without questions, at the end of the meeting) that “both countries could collaborate in their plans to promote the development of renewable energies, particularly in the offshore wind sector, as well as in infrastructure and defense”.
Sánchez also announced that, during his official trip, the Ministries of Science and Innovation of Spain and the Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy held a meeting on industrial technology cooperation in which they committed to launch, from 2023, a joint call for research and development, endowed with five million euros in grants from each country to finance large high-impact projects in mobility technologies and advanced manufacturing. Yesterday, a Memorandum of Understanding was also signed between the Diplomatic School of Spain and the Korean National Diplomatic Academy.
On the other hand, Pedro Sánchez again “condemned North Korea’s continuous ballistic tests” and made “a call for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and for the Security Council Resolutions to be complied with”. He also reiterated that Spain and South Korea share their commitment to “a rules-based international order” and condemn “in the strongest terms the Putin government’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine.”
For his part, President Yoon welcomed the fact that investment between the two countries’ companies “has been extended to batteries for electric vehicles and future strategic industries, including renewable energies such as solar and wind power” and expressed his hope that Spain and South Korea will be awarded new joint construction projects in third countries thanks to the agreement between CESCE and K-SURE.
Regarding Pyongyang’s nuclear program, Yoon recalled that, just yesterday, North Korea had carried out another ballistic test and assured that Pedro Sánchez and he had agreed to work closely “to give a united response to the international community”, as reported by the South Korean agency Yonhap.
