Official Working Visit of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to the Republic of Korea

(23/03/2012)

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will pay an official working visit to the Republic of Korea from 24 to 27 March 2012, when she is also scheduled to attend the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the visit will be a good opportunity for Thailand to create confidence among Korean investors, especially after the severe flooding in Thailand last year. While in the Republic of Korea, Prime Minister Yingluck will hold bilateral discussions with President Lee Myung-bak on such issues as trade and investment, agriculture, labor, tourism, nuclear energy, and environmental cooperation. She will visit the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project to learn from the Republic of Korea’s best practices in water management in order to apply them to Thailand. The Prime Minister will also deliver a speech on the role of women in Thai society to students of Ewha Women’s University. After the working visit on March 24-25, Prime Minister Yingluck will then participate in the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit on March 26-27. Leaders from 52 countries and three international organizations, namely the United Nations, International Atomic Energy Agency, and INTERPOL, will participate in the meeting. In this connection, Thailand will use this forum to underline the country’s political will in strengthening nuclear security and reducing threats from nuclear terrorism. The Nuclear Security Summit 2012 is the second of its kind. The first one took place in Washington in 2010. The summit this time will discuss nuclear security and try to produce concrete results. Thailand gives importance to the issue of nuclear security and has always abided by the Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. After the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, Thailand joined the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and also suggested the establishment of a nuclear monitoring network in the Southeast Asian region. Since the establishment of Dialogue Partnership between ASEAN and the Republic of Korea 1989, the Republic of Korea has become one of ASEAN’s most important and active partners in political, economic, and socio-cultural areas. Trade between Thailand and the Republic of Korea has expanded steadily during the past decade. In 2010, the Republic of Korea was Thailand’s 15th largest export market. Thailand exported 3.6 billion US dollars worth of goods to the Republic of Korea, an increase of 42 percent over 2009, while imports were valued at eight billion dollars. As a result, Thailand suffered a trade deficit of 4.4 billion dollars with the Republic of Korea. Major Thai exports to the Republic of Korea include rubber, computers and components, and electrical appliances. Thailand imports mainly iron and steel, chemicals, and jewelry from that country. It comes third as the most popular tourism destination among Koreans, after China and Japan.