1. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Korea Rural Community Corporation will dispatch a public-private delegation to the Republic of Ecuador and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay to seek cooperation with Latin America in smart farming from November 28 till December 5.

o The delegation will consist of representatives from five smart farming-related private companies, as well as those from public organizations, including the Rural Development Administration, and the Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry.

o The Foreign Ministry is working to identify key areas of economic cooperation with Latin American countries in order to increase international cooperation in the innovative growth industry in preparation for the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and to find export markets in Latin America. Since 2009, the Foreign Ministry has sent public-private delegations to the region to help Korean companies build presence there.

o The dispatch of the delegation aims to seek ways to export smart farming in the agrifood sector to countries where the agricultural and livestock industry accounts for a large portion of their economy. It also aims to establish a system for cooperation in smart farming-related agricultural technologies with the two countries.

2. Ecuador, to which the delegation will be dispatched, is the world’s largest banana producer where agricultural land accounts for more than one-third of the total land area. The country is a major cooperation partner which has a keen interest in sharing the ROK’s development experience.

o Uruguay, where 93 percent of the total land area is being used as pastures, is a country with a large stock-breeding sector, and the world’s ninth largest rice exporter. The country is willing to cooperate with the ROK to increase the overall productivity of the agricultural sector, and to apply smart farming technologies to the livestock sector.

3. The delegation will hold a forum on cooperation in smart agriculture in Ecuador, and a business seminar and counseling sessions in Uruguay in order to find Korean companies’ cooperation partners in the countries for discussions on ways to cooperate in smart agricultural technologies, as well as exchanges of information between companies.

o The upcoming event will be held with the support of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA)’s Korea Business Centers in Quito and Buenos Aires, and the Rural Development Administration’s Korea Program on International Agriculture (KOPIA) Center in Ecuador.

o Korean companies joining the delegation will also hold one-on-one meetings, in which they will promote their major projects, and engage in exchanges with companies in the Latin American countries.

4. In intergovernmental meetings with Ecuador’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and Uruguay’s Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, the ROK side will talk about smart agriculture being pursued by the ROK, and discuss quarantine procedures for agricultural and livestock products which the two countries are interested in exporting.

5. The delegation will also visit government-run research institutes, including Ecuador’s National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIAP) and Uruguay’s National Agricultural Research Institute (INIA) to propose ways the public and private sectors of the two countries can cooperate in smart agricultural technologies, and make efforts to sign MOUs on interagency cooperation in smart agriculture.

6. The public-private delegation to seek cooperation in smart farming will focus on establishing a system for cooperation with the governments and public organizations of the two countries in order to facilitate the export of “smart farming,” identified as one of the ROK government’s eight engines of innovative growth, in the private sector.

o The delegation’s visits to the countries are expected to become an opportunity to facilitate cooperation between the public and private sectors, and companies of the two sides in the area of smart agriculture, including smart farming, drones, and smart livestock farming.

o The ROK government and public organizations will continue to increase various support to make sure that the ROK’s smart farming technologies gain a competitive advantage in the global market.

* unofficial translation