November 11, 2024 - Dr. Kyungjin SONG, Country Representative of The Asia Foundation Korea, participated as a speaker at “Seminar on Indo-Pacific Strategy and Its Beyond: How to Consolidate Bilateral Relations Between Korea and Bangladesh” on November 5 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Bangladesh.

Kyungjin introduced the vision and principles as well as 9 core lines of effort of Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. Emphasizing the importance of implementation, she proposed the following.

-  Create a regular Korea-Bangladesh policy dialogue to discuss a wide range of issues of mutual interest such as emerging technologies, space security, climate response, environment, health, and trade;

-  Enhance Korea’s engagement in multilateral fora in South Asia such as IORA, IOC, BIMSTEC, etc.;

-  Strengthen cooperation on Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), maritime security, and maritime surveillance and information sharing;

-  Strengthen cybersecurity cooperation (in relation to this, she introduced TAF’s APAC Cybersecurity Fund program);

-  Ramp up collaboration in digital transition, infrastructure, water management, ocean management, and renewable energy, among others; and

-  Make the best use of closer bilateral development cooperation, given that Bangladesh became Korea’s largest ODA partner in 2023.

She also stressed the critical importance of being able to sequence national priorities in nation’s development and economic growth.

On Wednesday, November 6, Kyungjin visited the Youngone Korea Economic Processing Zone (KEPZ) in Chattogram, Bangladesh’s second largest city. The largest production site in world’s garment industry has contributed greatly to the Bangladeshi economy by hiring 35,000 workers on-site, providing education/training and childcare facilities to local workers, and abiding by high environmental standards, and. Solar panels the Youngone KEPZ’s installed produce sufficient power to run the KEPZ.  

Taking this opportunity, she visited TAF Bangladesh Office and had a good conversation on how TAF can support Korea-Bangladesh collaboration.