President Ma Ying-jeou met on the afternoon of August 7 with Korea's Incheon Metropolitan City Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok. The president expressed hope that the ROC and Korea will continue to deepen cooperation and interaction in a wide range of areas, and that bilateral relations will become even closer in the future.
In remarks, the president stated that Mayor Yoo previously served as Korea's Minister of Security and Public Administration (now the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs) and Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and served three terms as a member of the National Assembly. He was also the deputy chief of the preparatory committee for the inauguration of current Korean President Park Geun-hye. Mayor Yoo has enormous experience in the political arena and is highly admired throughout Korean society, said President Ma.
The president mentioned that Mayor Yoo last year invited New Taipei City Mayor Eric Liluan Chu (朱立倫) to attend the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. The team representing the ROC won 10 gold medals, 18 silvers, and 23 bronzes during the games, placing ninth in the overall medal count. Among those winners, two weightlifters broke world records during the competition. The president also noted that this marked the fifth consecutive multi-sport athletic competition in which Korea placed second in the medal count, an impressive feat.
President Ma then touched on the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Korea, stating that everyone was pleased by the recent announcement from the Korean government that the outbreak is over. He pointed out that Taiwan experienced an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 when he served as Taipei City mayor, and that he worked and slept in his office for 42 days to facilitate monitoring of the latest developments associated with the outbreak. Consequently, the president said that he understands the enormous pressure that local governments are under when there are outbreaks of communicable diseases. And given the increasingly globalized world, highly communicable diseases can easily spread and quickly be passed to others due to frequent transnational interaction. This, he said, highlights the importance of outbreak prevention work and the sharing of information among countries.
President Ma noted that the ROC and Korea have a longstanding relationship. Former President Chiang Kai-shek in 1938 had trumpeted a slogan—Restore Korea and Taiwan, and Consolidate the Republic of China. He also advocated at the Cairo Conference in 1943 that Korea should be independent. President Ma said that the history of the two nations has become all the more meaningful given that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
On the economic front, President Ma stated that Taiwan-Korea trade in 2014 stood at US$27.4 billion, with Korea being Taiwan's sixth largest trading partner and Taiwan being Korea's seventh largest trading partner. The two sides have signed many important agreements or memoranda since 2008 to deepen bilateral cooperation, covering areas such as electronic certificates of origin, aviation safety, youth working holiday visas, local airports and tourism, communications broadcasting cooperation, meteorology and earthquake technology cooperation, and industrial property rights information. The president hopes that the two sides will sign a bilateral investment agreement and an avoidance of double taxation agreement, which are both currently under negotiation, as well as an economic cooperation agreement. All of these moves would greatly advance bilateral trade and investment relations, he stated.
As for interaction in the private sector, President Ma mentioned that the global economic crisis in 2008 and 2009 caused the number of visits between Taiwan and Korea to drop to only 615,000 and 559,000, respectively. However, the opening of direct flights between Taipei's Songshan Airport and Seoul's Kimpo Airport in April 2012 and the move by both sides in July of that year to extend visa-free entry to 90 days from 30 days, underpinned a sharp growth in bilateral tourism. Last year, the total number of visits between the two countries reached 1.15 million, which was a rise of 87% from 2008, and Korea has become the fastest growing source of foreign tourists to Taiwan, he said. The president hopes that cooperation in a wider range of areas will propel bilateral relations to new heights.