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| Janis Mazeiks |
In a recent interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Undersecretary of State Janis Mazeiks said traveling to Latvia not only offers chances to explore the Baltic state, but in the long term, to discover investment and business opportunities.
"The first thing that should be mentioned is tourism," Mazeiks, also the political director of the Latvian foreign ministry, said when asked about top areas of cooperation.
About 95 percent of each of three flights were occupied when the two countries temporarily opened a direct route between Incheon and the Latvian capital of Riga on May 24, May 30 and June 7.
The success came amid a growing number of Korean tourists to Latvia. The figure reached 10,000 in 2018 on the centenary of Latvia's independence. The country seeks to increase the combined number of Korean visitors to three Baltic states, including Estonia and Lithuania, to 20,000 by 2020.
Mazeiks referred to the 2018 figure as "a good start but yet a small start" for investment.
"We're not very well known in Korea despite the fact we are a member of the EU, OECD and NATO and have very high standards when it comes to the economy," he said, adding Korea accounts for 0.06 percent of foreign direct investment to Latvia.
"Tourism is a very good start, because tourists also happen to be business people they possibly can find business opportunities," Mazeiks said.
Mazeiks picked the logging industry as another area of cooperation, pointing out Latvia is one of the biggest timber suppliers to Korea and that the two sides have room to work together on forestry.
He speculated the vice-ministerial Joint Economic Committee launched by Korea and the three Baltic states in Seoul, April 26, will give "more visibility" to each other.
The inaugural committee meeting had about 20 government officials from the foreign and other relevant ministries.
Mazeiks was the head of the Latvian delegation.
The parties discussed ways to expand cooperation on trade and investment, ICT, science and technology, startups, transportation, tourism, education and agriculture.
"We believe there is a lot of synergy we can build on," Mazeiks said.
