By Song Baleun and Lee Jihae 

President Moon Jae-in and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow on April 17 announced plans to boost bilateral cooperation in sectors such as energy and infrastructure.  

At Oguzkhan Palace in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat, the two leaders in their summit also agreed to forge ahead with Korea’s New Northern Policy and Turkmenistan’s development of its transportation infrastructure. 

Both presidents signed six memorandums of understanding on prevention of double taxation by reducing taxes for Korean corporations and laborers in Turkmenistan, human resource development in both countries and cooperation in technology. 

The two leaders lauded the Kiyanly Petrochemical Complex project, which was built and completed in October last year by a global consortium led by Korean corporations, and agreed to continue bilateral cooperation in energy plants. 

In a joint news briefing, President Moon said, "As we saw in the Kiyanly Petrochemical Complex project, Turkmenistan and Korea are ideal partners," adding, "Our nations will actively utilize our strengths to continue similar bilateral projects."

Seoul and Ashgabat also pledged to expand cooperation in other sectors such as sanitation, medicine, information and communications technology and the environment. 

In addition, they announced stronger cooperation in education and culture, including the setup of a branch of King Sejong Institute in Turkmenistan. The country is the only one of the five Central Asian nations that lacks the Korean government-run institute, which offers classes in the Korean language. 
 

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