1. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, together with Minister of Economy and Planning Adel Fakeih of Saudi Arabia, will hold the 18th meeting of the Republic of Korea-Saudi Arabia Joint Committee in Seoul on October 26 and 27. The meeting will cover ways for bilateral substantive cooperation in 21 areas, including foreign affairs, security, trade, investment, energy, construction, transportation, healthcare, and medical service.

° The alternate head delegates from the ROK and Saudi Arabia will be Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs Yun Kang-hyeon and the director-general in charge of partnerships at the Ministry of Economy and Planning, respectively.

※ The ROK-Saudi Joint Committee is a regularly convened mechanism for comprehensive discussions on bilateral economic issues pursuant to the bilateral “Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation” concluded in 1974.

2. The two sides will review the progress in the follow-up on the outcome of the 17th Joint Committee meeting held in Riyadh in December 2014 as well as the progress in the bilateral economic cooperation, and discuss in detail major cooperation projects between the two countries.

° In particular, the ROK side will ask the Saudi government to pay attention to and support bids of Korean companies to take part in Saudi projects to build such forms of infrastructure as mass transportation systems, railways and new towns as well as SMART nuclear power plants.

3. The forthcoming meeting of the Joint Committee is expected to serve as a useful opportunity to seek more substantial progress in economic cooperation with the ROK’s No. 1 economic partner in the Middle East; with the year 2017 marking the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations, to comprehensively review the progress in bilateral cooperation; and to discuss ways that the two countries can work together to forge partnership for shared sustainable prosperity.


* unofficial translation