Park holds summit with Mozambique's president

SEOUL, June 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye held a summit with Mozambique's President Armando Guebuza on Tuesday, pledging to help the African country end poverty and develop its economy and hoping to bolster cooperation in tapping its massive energy reserves and other resources. It was Park's second summit with an African leader in less than a week. On Thursday, she met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and agreed to deepen cooperation in resources development and sharing South Korea's economic development experiences. The African leaders were the first foreign heads of state to visit South Korea since Park took office in February, underlining her push to reach out to African nations that are rich in resources but lack expertise and know-how on economic development. Guebuza arrived Monday for a four-day visit. Besides the summit with Park, he was scheduled to visit the Korea Gas Corp.'s liquefied petroleum gas (LNG) terminal in Incheon, west of Seoul, and the Songdo International Business District. "Mozambique is a country of great growth potential with vast and fertile land and rich energy and mineral resources," Park said during lunch with Guebuza after summit talks, adding that she believes the country can realize its economic development goal under Guebuza's leadership. Park said the African country can learn from South Korea's "Saemaul" or new community movement, a government-led campaign launched in the 1970s to modernize its rural areas under her father, then President Park Chung-hee. She also said South Korea plans to increase its contribution to cultivating human talents and establishing industrial infrastructure in Mozambique and hopes to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation in infrastructure construction and energy and resources sectors. Guebuza said that ending poverty is the central goal of his administration and the country is making a great deal of efforts to develop human resources to realize the objective. He also said Mozambique's economy has made considerable progress, but still has a lot to learn from South Korea. Guebuza said the country wants to learn about how South Korea was able to develop the information, communication and technology industry and related sectors as a basis for its economy and how vocational training played an important role in South Korea's development agenda. Mozambique is a rising resources power. Its natural gas reserves are estimated at 3.5 billion tons, which is enough to meet South Korea's entire gas needs for 100 years. Moreover, the estimate is expected to rise further as exploration proceeds. The country is also estimated to have 20 million barrels of condensate reserves and produces about 1,000 barrels a day. It is rich in mineral resources as well, boasting the world's largest reserves of tantalum, the seventh-largest reserves of titanium and the 14th-largest reserves of aluminium. Mozambique's economy has been growing fast after it introduced the market economy in 1990. Since 2007, its economy has grown around 7 percent annually and this year's growth is estimated at 8.4 percent, officials said. Bilateral trade volume between South Korea and Mozambique amounted to US$110 million last year. Mozambique is also a key partner for South Korea's official development assistance. Seoul's ODA to the country rose about 25-fold to $25 million last year from 2008. jschang@yna.co.kr (END)