1. Director-General for European Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jung Ki-hong, together with Director-General for Foreign Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Portuguese Republic Pedro Costa Pereira, held the sixth Republic of Korea-Portuguese Republic policy consultation and a luncheon in Lisbon on January 23 (12:00, local time), during which the two sides discussed the ROK-Portugal relations, ways to step up substantive cooperation, the situations on the Korean Peninsula and in Europe, and international issues.

2. The two sides noted with appreciation that since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1961, the ROK and Portugal have been seeing advances in the bilateral ties in various areas, including political affairs, economy, culture and people-to-people exchanges; and welcomed the robustly growing trade and investment between the two countries, as could be seen from the 20% increase in the bilateral trade in 2018 from that in the year before.

° Director-General Jung took note of active high-level exchanges, including the visit to Portugal in 2018 by then National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun and the visit to the ROK by President of the Assembly of the Republic Eduardo Rodrigues, which was being arranged.

° The two sides, both recognizing the great need for mutually beneficial cooperation in the areas of information and communications technology (ICT) and public administration, agreed to further step up cooperation in these fields.

° With Portugal having become a member of the Digital 9 group in 2018, the two sides agreed to bolster cooperation on the e-government system and administrative modernization efforts.  

3. The two sides, welcoming the greatly increasing people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, as could be seen from the recent, rapid growth in the number of Korean tourists in Portugal, agreed to hold a meeting of the joint cultural committee in the first half of the year 2019 for discussions on ways to work more closely together in the areas of tourism, languages and education.

4. Director-General Jung shared with his Portuguese counterpart recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, including the outcome of the three rounds of inter-Korean summit talks and the US-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea summit, all of which had taken place in 2018, as well as progress regarding the proposed second US-DPRK summit, which is currently under discussion; and asked the Portuguese government to remain supportive of efforts toward the denuclearization and the establishment of a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.

° Director-General Pereira mentioned that Portuguese government would continue rendering support to the ROK government on its efforts to achieve denuclearization and build peace on the Korean Peninsula.

5. The two sides discussed a post-Brexit outlook, the situations in Asia amid the rise of the People’s Republic of China, and in Europe, and major international issues, such as the migrant issue; and agreed to continue working with each other on these issues.

* unofficial translation