The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, dedicated yesterday the first day of his official visit to South Korea 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”.
Sánchez, who arrived in Seoul last Wednesday after participating in the G20 Summit in Bali (Indonesia), began the day with a visit to Samsung’s microprocessor manufacturing facilities in Pyeongtaek, the most advanced plant in the world in the manufacture of microchips, where he met with the company’s top managers to present Spain’s plans to become a “relevant global player” in the semiconductor sector.
The Prime Minister was accompanied by the CEO of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions Division, Kye-hyun Kyung; the President and CEO of the Microchip Business Division, Si-young Choi; and a Spanish delegation that included the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Reyes Maroto.
During the visit, Sánchez held a meeting with Samsung executives, to whom he highlighted the government’s “ambitious strategy” to make Spain a major player in the semiconductor value chain and reported that Spain will allocate 12 billion euros, including 9 billion euros of public funds, for manufacturing facilities. Some large companies have already announced plans to invest in Spain, with new chip design centers. Samsung is one of the leading global multinationals in the semiconductor area. Talks will continue today, Friday, with a meeting between the President of the Government and the company’s CEO, Lee Jae-Yong.
Cervantes of Seoul
Pedro Sánchez then visited the facilities of the future Instituto Cervantes in Seoul, in the UNESCO Building, where he unveiled a commemorative plaque as a pre-inauguration, accompanied by the Minister of Culture of South Korea, Park Bo Gyoon; the Secretary General of the Instituto Cervantes, Carmen Noguero; and the director of the Cervantes of Tokyo, Víctor Andresco.
The new Cervantes Center in Seoul was approved by the Council of Ministers on November 15 and is scheduled to open in 2023. The new center will replace the Aula Cervantes, located since April 2011 at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, and will meet the growing demand for Spanish language learning in South Korea, the country with the highest number of DELE exam candidates per capita in Asia.
During the ceremony, the President of the Government highlighted the growing interest of Korean society in the culture, traditions and languages of Spain through gastronomy, music, or audiovisual creations and recalled that the strategic partnership agreed in June 2021 during the visit to Spain of the previous Korean President, Moon Jae-in, included “the need to increase cultural exchange”. “Today we are fulfilling that commitment,” he declared.
Likewise, Sánchez assured that interest in the Spanish language “has not stopped growing, not only in Asia”, since, “in 2022, according to official data, more than 496 million people have Spanish as their mother tongue, it is the official language of the UN, it is the third most used language in this organization, it is a reference language for international relations and almost 24 million students studied Spanish as a foreign language in 2022”. “The Government is aware of the enormous potential that, for our economy, our industry and the prosperity of the country, the Spanish language represents” and, for this reason, it is going to allocate 1.1 billion euros, from the European Next Generation EU funds, to the strategic project (PERTE) New Economy of the Spanish Language.”
Spain-Korea Tribune
Pedro Sánchez’s day concluded with the closing of the XIV edition of the Spain-Korea Tribune, an event organized by Casa Asia and the Korea Foundation in which around 50 important personalities from the political, economic and academic fields of the two countries participated under the slogan New Geopolitical Dynamics of Europe and Asia-Pacific.
During his speech, the chief executive said that “Putin’s war in Ukraine has highlighted the interdependence between the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific spaces.” “Now more than ever, what we need are reliable partners with whom we share values, principles to continue building and defending an international order based on rules, on increasingly solid, effective and inclusive multilateralism to face global challenges that do not attend to borders,” he said. “Spain and the Republic of Korea share this vision and the Korean Executive is undoubtedly one of our main allies in East Asia,” he added.
Pedro Sánchez also stressed “the importance of the Korean Government’s presence at the NATO Summit and the need, consequently, to act jointly in the face of common threats.” “It is clear that we are concerned about the development of North Korea’s nuclear program and its worrying arms escalation, the unprecedented number of ballistic tests so far this year, in clear violation of the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, as it warns of the validity of the North Korean threat and we are well aware of this, despite the preeminence that the news coverage devotes to other theaters of conflict, as in the case of Ukraine,” he warned.
According to Sánchez, “our relations are at their best moment, as reflected in the intensity of travel exchanges and visits in recent years”. “President Yoon Suk-yeol visited Spain on his first trip abroad, participating in the NATO summit in Madrid held last June, and my visit to Seoul will be the first by a Spanish Prime Minister to Korea since our bilateral relations were established,” he said. “Too much time has passed, let’s hope that this does not happen again. Let’s not take another 70 years, but let’s make this type of visit much more regular,” he concluded. South Korea and Spain raised their bilateral relations to the level of “strategic partnership” in 2021, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
Today, the second and last day of Sánchez’s official visit to Korea, includes 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.
The President of the Government will also make a wreath for the victims of the avalanche during the Halloween celebrations in Seoul, which left at least 153 dead, and will be received by President Yoon Suk-yeol, in office since May this year. At the end of the meeting, the two leaders will address a joint press conference without questions. The two governments will also sign a collaboration agreement between their Diplomatic Schools and another private agreement between the Spanish Export Credit Agency (CESCE) and its South Korean counterpart.
