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| South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's state counsellor and the Southeast Asian country's de facto leader, smile at each other during a joint press conference at the presidential palace in Naypyitaw, Tuesday evening, after a summit where the two leaders agreed to boost bilateral ties and cooperation for mutual prosperity. Yonhap |
By Kim Yoo-chul
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar ― President Moon Jae-in agreed with Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's current de facto leader, Tuesday, to make joint efforts to enhance economic and trade cooperation.
At the invitation of Myanmar President Win Myint, Moon arrived here in the morning as part of his six-day visit to Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. Moon is the third Korean president to visit Myanmar since 1983, when then President Chun Doo-hwan avoided an assassination attempt there by North Korea. President Lee Myung-bak also visited the country in 2012.
In a joint press conference after South Korea-Myanmar Summit held in the presidential palace, Aung, Myanmar's state counsellor, expressed appreciation for the continued investments by Korean firms in the Southeast Asian country and promised to establish a "Korea Desk" ― a fast-track approval process offering preferential administrative and financial assistance in trade ― for such companies.
Aung also pledged to reduce the regulatory procedures for the state run Korean company LH, which is involved in a joint construction project for a massive industrial complex.
In return, Moon agreed to expand Seoul's economic development cooperation fund (EDCF) contributions to Myanmar to $1 billion between 2018 and 2022 from $500 million between 2014 and 2017.
"Under an expanded partnership, South Korean firms will have more chances of winning sizable business deals in the energy and electricity sectors," President Moon said during the conference.
Korean investment in Myanmar has grown vastly in the 30 years since the country opened to foreign capital in 1988 ― from bilateral trade to "development aid." It has shifted from foreign direct investment in natural gas and oil to agriculture, industrial complexes and textiles.
By the end of the first half of this year, investment here totaled $3.69 billion in 175 projects, making Korea the sixth-largest foreign investor after China, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
While ties with Myanmar are expanding in various sectors, the Moon-Aung meeting didn't "deeply touch" on issues of Myanmar's possible accountability for a genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign there against the Rohingya people. It's been two years since Myanmar's security forces launched a crackdown on nearly 700,000 Rohingya, according to international aid agencies.
A Cheong Wa Dae official declined to comment on the matter. Aung was the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, while Moon is a founding member of the activist People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a leading pro-human rights network.
Both the United Nations International Independent Fact-Finding Mission and S. Korean U.N. Special Rapporteur Lee Yang-hee recently called Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya "nothing less than a full and ongoing genocide." The International Criminal Court has made steps toward an expected investigation of the country's "crimes against humanity."
"I sincerely thanked Myanmar for backing the peace process on the Korean Peninsula and told Aung that I hope to see true harmony between the people there," the South Korean leader said.
After the summit, the leaders announced the agreements during the joint conference, but didn't take questions from reporters.
