1. The sixth and largest-ever round of the Korea-Central Asia Caravan event, an annual event held under the Republic of Korea’s Eurasia Initiative, will take place in Almaty and Astana, Kazakhstan, as well as Dushanbe, Tajikistan, from March 28 till April 1, bringing together about 100 people from the private and public sectors.

° The Korea-Central Asia Caravan event, a private-public public diplomacy project between the ROK and Central Asian countries aimed to promote mutual understanding and comprehensive cooperation across the board, including political affairs, economy and culture, was first held in Kazakhstan in 2011. In 2016, the event will be held in the two aforementioned Central Asian countries in order to step up private-public cooperation in Central Asia on the Eurasia Initiative.

2. The ROK delegation to the event will be led by the Foreign Ministry’s Director-General for European Affairs Park Chul-min and composed of people from the private, public, industrial and academic sectors as well as media outlets and the cultural community, including the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) and the Korea-Central Asia Friendship Association.

° The Caravan event will consist of various programs, including bilateral policy consultations with Kazakhstan and Tajikistan; one-on-one consultations between small- and medium-sized companies and business forums; an ROK-Kazakhstan international seminar; an ROK- Central Asia international seminar in Tajikistan; and cultural performances and K-pop contests.

° The ROK-Central Asia international seminar, which will be hosted by KIEP in Dushanbe on March 31, will bring together those from think tanks of the five Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan and cover “ways to promote ROK-Central Asia cooperation.”

° In addition, a meeting of Korean companies operating in Central Asia will be held in Almaty on March 28 to seek ways to step up substantive cooperation between the ROK and Central Asia. On March 30 and 31, the Korea-Central Asia Friendship Association will host in Dushanbe a business forum and one-on-one consultations between entrepreneurs.

° During the Caravan event, a 53-member cultural troupe from the ROK, the largest of its kind in the Caravan history, will stage cultural performances under the theme of “Arirang makes the Caravan’s heart pound” in Kazakhstan on March 29 and Tajikistan on March 31. Among the seven genres of the performances will be traditional Korean dance, K-Pop, Taekwondo (martial arts) dance, and b-boying.

3. The Caravan event comes as part of the ROK government’s tangible efforts to fulfill its Eurasia Initiative. It is expected to serve as an opportunity to provide a stronger impetus for future-oriented and mutually beneficial private-public cooperation between the ROK and Central Asia across the board, including political and academic affairs, economy and culture.

° In particular, the Caravan event is expected to serve as an opportunity for the two sides to discuss policies, under which the ROK can share with Central Asian countries its state-of-the-art technology and development experiences and help the countries achieve industrial modernization and diversification, as well as ways to boost substantive cooperation. The cultural performances and the K-Pop festival during the Caravan event are expected to provide a special opportunity for Hallyu (Korean Wave) to further spread in Central Asia.

4. As follow-up events after the “Eurasia Express” project in July 2015, the Foreign Ministry, starting with the Korea-Central Asia Caravan event, plans to hold in 2016 various caravan events in main regions in Eurasia, including near the Arctic routes and around the Yellow Sea and the East Sea.

° In addition, in the second half of the year 2016, the ROK and the Central Asian countries will hold their tenth Cooperation Forum, one of the signature projects between the two sides under the ROK’s Eurasia Initiative. This year’s forum will be held at the upgraded foreign ministerial level from the previous vice foreign ministerial level. In conjunction with the Forum, an economic vice ministerial international meeting will take place to seek ways to achieve industrial modernization and diversification in Central Asia in a way that takes into account the mutually complementary economic characteristics of the ROK and the Central Asian countries.

5. The ROK, since forging diplomatic relations with Kazakhstan in 1992 and Tajikistan in 1995, have continuously enhanced friendly and cooperative ties with them in a mutually beneficial way, including by holding bilateral summit talks with the former in June 2014 and the latter in April 2015.

° In particular, Kazakhstan is the top resource-rich country in Central Asia and the ROK’s largest investment destination in the region. The two countries have seen advances in substantive cooperation mainly in the sectors of energy, resources, plants and the construction of infrastructure and housing structures. They are continuously broadening the scope of their cooperation to include more diverse areas, such as information technology, healthcare, medical service, culture, education, agriculture and finance.


* unofficial translation