S.Korea, Kazakhstan to expand cooperation on mineral resource

South Korea's Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Lee Chang-yang and Kazakhstan's first deputy prime minister Roman Sklyar, held a meeting in Seoul on Friday to expand bilateral cooperation on key minerals and major infrastructure projects.

The two countries evaluated last year's record trade volume of $6.5 billion, which was achieved through automobile exports and oil imports, as significant and decided to expand cooperation in the future.

During the meeting, Minister Lee praised the successful cooperation between the two countries in infrastructure and energy projects led by Deputy Prime Minister Sklyar, including the outer ring road in Almaty, Tengiz oil and gas field refinery and Shymkent combined cycle power plant. He also requested attention to ensure that Korean companies can win new projects in the energy and materials sectors without any difficulty in the future.

Kazakhstan, which ranks first in chromium deposits worldwide, second in uranium and eighth in zinc, agreed that it has abundant mineral resources such as rare metals and sees Korea as an ideal partner for cooperation due to its technical skills and personnel necessary for mineral development.

The Korean Ministry of Industry plans to strengthen cooperation by closely communicating with the Kazakh government to establish a stable core mineral supply network. Minister Lee also conveyed the government's will to host Expo 2030 in Busan and requested support from the Kazakh government.

Deputy Prime Minister Sklyar said that his government is running a special working group between Korea and Kazakhstan to support Korean business activities and expressed his willingness to expand economic exchanges with Korea.

Write to So-Hyeon Kim at alpha@hankyung.com