Seoul, London agree to double bilateral investment, trade by 2020

South Korean President Park Geun-hye and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed to almost double bilateral trade and investment by 2020 at their first summit in London Tuesday.

During the summit held at 10 Downing Street, the two leaders agreed to increase the bilateral trade volume of 12.2 billion U.S. dollars to 20 billion dollars by 2020 and the cumulative two-way flow of 22.8 billion dollars to 45 billion dollars. To discuss measures to expand bilateral trade and investment, the two countries plan to set up a joint committee for economy and trade on a government level and a global chief executive officers forum on a private level. The two countries will alternately host the meetings every 18 months.

The two leaders focused their talks on promoting bilateral cooperation in the fields of finance and energy and nuclear power generation.

On the sidelines of the summit, the two countries signed 11 memorandums of agreement (MOUs) for their cooperation in finance. South Korean financial institutions secured a total of 3 billion dollars in financial assistance for cooperation in a wide range of areas by signing MOUS with various British trade financing organizations, international financial bodies and commercial banks. The money will be used to support businesses from the two countries to advance to overseas markets as well as each other`s market.

Seoul and London also signed seven MOUs, including one for comprehensive cooperation in nuclear power generation, in the fields of nuclear power plants, energy technology and infrastructure. The deals would open the way for South Korea to join in the bidding procedures for British nuclear power plants and pursue the transfer of Britain`s technologies for dismantling nuclear power plants.