Korean Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong stressed on Thursday his country's plans to enhance multi-field co-operation with Qatar.
Speaking at a press conference in Doha, Hee-ryong congratulated Qatar on the successful World Cup 2022 hosting, highlighting the country's development and openness.
He said: "I was impressed by its development and its openness, and that raised my expectation of our co-operation going forward. This morning, I had the pleasure of meeting with the Minister of Energy, Minister of Municipality and the Ministry of Transport of Qatar, and when we had the bilateral meetings, we found the common interest in developing new vision for the future."
He highlighted the major role played by Qatar as a "key energy supplier to the global market," and a key contributor to "the stability of the energy supply around the world". The Korean minister also noted his country's plans to develop other sources of energy, such as hydrogen and renewable energy, in addition to promoting future industries, which are sectors that open the door for joint co-operation with Qatar.
He highlighted his country's desires to attain the goal of the carbon neutrality by 2050 and the country's challenges of reshaping its industry and developing renewable energies like Hydrogen and smart cities and digitalisation of the society. Commenting on the existing bilateral relations, Hee-ryong called for further collaboration in newly-found areas of co-operation and reactivating the bilateral platform like the high-level strategic committee between the two governments.
He said: "So we have these common areas of interest and we have the bilateral platform like the high-level Strategic Committee between the two governments. But the activities under this platform has been somewhat disappointing or subdued in recent years. But we have the new government and we have the various areas where we can work together.
"Korea has Samsung and Hyundai, which are the best companies and they have been working for several years in Qatar through their project participation like the Metro Development, expressway construction and of course plant construction in Qatar.
"And their performance in Qatar has given them a very high reputation, and they build trust with the Qatari government. And I believe this trust will give us a foundation for future co-operation on projects or co-operation in Qatar. For instance, we can develop co-operation in gas plant construction development and of course the independent water power plants development in Qatar can be one of the areas."
He added that his country seeks further co-operation by building channels of communication between the two governments. The Korean minister expressed his happiness at meeting with Their Excellencies the ministers of energy, municipality and transport, pointing out that such bilateral meetings could explore other areas of cooperation and dialogue regarding them.
He highlighted the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's hosting of the global infrastructure co-operation conference, to enhance ties between South Korea and friendly countries. He stressed the possibility of developing and diversifying communication and co-operation mechanisms between the two countries, and linking them to talks with the private sector to build multiple channels of co-operation between the two governments and companies regarding areas of cooperation as a starting point for activating bilateral co-operation between the two countries in the future.