1. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, will host the “Korea-LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean) Future Cooperation Forum 2018” at Conrad Seoul Hotel on June 28 and 29. The forthcoming event themed “Korea-LAC Cooperation on Smart Cities and Urban Regeneration” will consist of a Korea-LAC Experts and Business Forum on June 28 and a Korea-LAC High-level Forum on June 29.

° The Forum, the upcoming round of which will mark the 11^th since the first held in 2008 under the name of the High-Level Forum on Korea-Latin America Partnership, is the largest LAC-related event held in the ROK.

2. The forthcoming Forum will bring together delegates from various sectors of 14 countries and 4 international organizations, including minister- or vice-minister-level officials and high-level provincial government officials from such LAC countries as El Salvador, Argentina, Chile and Peru who handle matters related to smart cities and urban regeneration; as well as experts and entrepreneurs.

° The ROK delegation to the event will be comprised of senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Seoul Metropolitan City government, the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) Authority, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the Korea Overseas Infrastructure and Urban Development Support Corporation (KIND), the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), and the Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation (SH).

3. At the Korea-LAC High-level Forum on June 29, Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha and Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mee will deliver welcoming remarks, followed by congratulatory remarks by lawmaker Cho Jeong-sik of the ruling Democratic Party and Executive President and CEO Luis Carranza of the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF).

° The High-level Forum will feature presentations by senior officials from central and provincial governments of ten LAC countries and the ROK on their countries’ plans regarding smart cities and urban regeneration as well as ways to work together in the field. Among the presenters will be Minister of Public Works, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Eliud Ayala of El Salvador; Secretary Fernando Álvarez de Celis of the Argentine Ministry of the Interior, Public Works and Housing; Undersecretary Jose Luis Dominguez of the Chilean Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications; Deputy Minister Camilo Torres of the Venezuelan Ministry of People’s Power for Higher Education, Science and Technology; Mayor Jonas Ferreira of Campinas, Brazil; Deputy Minister You Byeong-kwon of the ROK Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Office of Land Use and Urban Development; and Deputy Mayor Jin Hee-sun of the Seoul Metropolitan City government's Urban Regeneration Headquarters.

4. The participants in the Korea-LAC Experts and Business Forum on June 28 will include Director of the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean Elkin Velasquez of the UN Habitat, Director of the Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Division Jose Luis Samaniego of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and other delegates from international organizations; and representatives from companies conducting smart city projects, such as GEL, a city and industrial complex developer in Bolivia, and Vortice IT Cluster from Mexico. At the event, they will discuss specific relevant cases, the progress in their projects and outlooks.

5. On June 28, a business session will take place as a side event, where Pyunghwa Engineering Consultants Ltd., TRACOM Group, Dohwa Engineering Co., and other private Korean companies related to smart cities will share with other participants their relevant projects and seek ways to step up cooperation between the ROK and the LAC.

° On June 30, participants from LAC will make a tour of the Smartium (smart museum), Cheonggyecheon stream, etc. to see for themselves the progress in the ROK’s efforts in smart city development and urban regeneration.

6. The 2018 Forum will follow up on the 2017 round on “Korea-LAC Cooperation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution Era” by discussing how technology for the fourth industrial revolution may be comprehensively applied to the development of smart cities and the regeneration of cities people live in. The event is expected to serve as an opportunity to explore the possibility of using intelligence-information technology to resolve issues facing cities in the full range of areas, including transportation, environment, public security, and healthcare, and thereby to contribute to building “a people-centered, sustainable and inclusive city.”

° The event is also expected to help to broaden the scope of the ROK-LAC cooperation to include new industries; and to pave the way for multi-level cooperation among not only policy makers of central governments but also various other stakeholders, such as provincial government agencies, international organizations and enterprises.

※ Further details about the event are available on its official website at http://klacforum.org. For inquiries, please call the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ South America Division at 02-2100-7432 or the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Overseas Construction Policy Division at 044-201-3518.

* unofficial translation