Ambassador Dr. Bum Goo Jong & Premier Armin Laschet – Picture by Land NRW
Tuesday, 12 November 2019, Düsseldorf, NRW: Premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet received the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Germany, Dr. Bum Goo Jong, for his inaugural visit to the State Chancellery in Düsseldorf. In addition to bilateral relations, the discussion focused on increased cooperation in important economic sectors such as IT, electronics, semiconductor technology and intelligent manufacturing.
As per statement Premier Armin Laschet: “South Korea is a pioneer in important technology sectors. North Rhine-Westphalia is the only state that has had a representative office in South Korea for more than three decades, and is cultivating intensive cooperation, particularly in the field of higher education. We want to expand this cooperation and learn from and profit from each other through constant exchange, especially in future technologies”.
Laschet continued: “Ambassador Dr. Bum Goo Jong is also an ambassador for the close relations between our countries, as he – like more than 1,000 South Korean students in North Rhine-Westphalia – completed part of his studies in Germany. South Korea and Germany share the experience of a divided country. Especially on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which was a stroke of luck in German history, it is important to value our unity and at the same time support the path of inner-Korean rapprochement on the Korean peninsula.”
North Rhine-Westphalia and South Korea
South Korea is one of North Rhine-Westphalia’s most important partners in Asia. North Rhine-Westphalia is the only state to have had a representative office in Seoul since 1988 via its NRW.Invest business development agency. North Rhine-Westphalia is home to around 60 South Korean companies, and numerous North Rhine-Westphalian companies have offices in South Korea. They thus contribute to the trading volume of 3.3 billion euros. Most recently, the Minister for Economics, Innovation, Digitisation and Energy, Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, was on a two-day trip to South Korea in October 2018, where he met representatives of the South Korean economy.
Around 7,500 South Koreans live in North Rhine-Westphalia, almost every fifth South Korean in Germany. There are almost 30 university cooperations between South Korean and North Rhine-Westphalian universities, of which RWTH Aachen University alone has 15. In addition, more than 1,000 South Koreans study in North Rhine-Westphalia.
For further information
Embassy of Korea to Germany: http://overseas.mofa.go.kr/de-ko/index.do
Government of NRW: https://www.land.nrw/de/pressemitteilung/ministerpraesident-armin-laschet-empfaengt-den-botschafter-der-republik-korea-0
