The government of the Republic of Korea and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) strengthened their strategic cooperation relationship today upon signing an accord that promotes trade and sustainable urban and rural development in the region’s countries with a view to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The agreement was penned by Kang Kyung-wha, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea, and Alicia Bárcena, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, at a gathering held in the framework of the United Nations regional organization’s thirty-seventh session, which concludes on Friday, May 11, in Havana, Cuba.

The cooperation agreement seeks to strengthen the capacities of legislators and related governmental agencies in ECLAC’s member countries to promote the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises through a more intensive use of information and communications technologies (including paperless trade) and innovation in exports.

It also aims to bolster its impact on the promotion of sustainable urban and rural development in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

In July 2017, the government of Korea and ECLAC signed a 2017-2019 multiannual program that addresses the issues of the sustainable development of exports and the strengthening of the Asia Pacific-Latin America Observatory, which allows for consolidating bilateral cooperation and planning actions over a longer term.

The Republic of Korea became a member State of ECLAC on July 23, 2007.

Both ECLAC and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), which is also part of the United Nations, support the work of the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC), established in 1999 and which groups 16 Asian countries and 20 Latin American ones.