1. On May 22, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his Mexican counterpart Jose Antonio Meade held the sixth Republic of Korea-Mexico high-level policy consultation. In the meeting, the top diplomats discussed ways to promote substantive cooperation across the board.

* Mexican Foreign Secretary Meade is on a visit to the ROK from May 21 through 23 to attend the fifth MIKTA Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held on May 22.

2. In the high-level policy consultation, the two ministers took note of growing substantive cooperation between the two countries in various sectors, including political affairs, economy, trade, development and culture as well as on the international stage based on their strategic partnership forged in 2005. They agreed to continue efforts to bolster the momentum of bilateral cooperation down the road by boosting people-to-people and material exchanges.

3. Minister Yun noted that Mexico is seeing dynamic advances in cooperative ties with the ROK in the fields of trade and economy, as demonstrated by its status as the ROK’s largest trading partner in Latin America in 2014. He asked for the Mexican government’s cooperation to resume negotiations for a bilateral FTA as an institutional basis for the expansion of bilateral trade and investment.

* Mexico, one of the ROK’s main markets in Latin America, is the ROK’s largest trading partner, with the two-way trade volume reaching 14.1 billion US dollars in 2014.

4. In addition, Minister Yun asked the Mexican government to pay attention to and render support for bids of highly tech-savvy and abundantly experienced Korean companies to take bigger parts in its various infrastructure projects. In response, Secretary Meade conveyed willingness to make strong efforts to increase bilateral substantive cooperation in such projects.

5. Minister Yun proposed expediting efforts to conclude a working holiday agreement in a bid to boost exchanges and enhance mutual understanding between the younger generations of the two countries. Secretary Meade positively responded to the proposal by expressing willingness to cooperate in that regard.

6. Secretary Meade brought attention to growing bilateral cooperation not only at such regional and other multilateral mechanisms as MIKTA, APEC, the G20 and the Pacific Alliance (PA) but also on global issues, including the proposed reform of the UN Security Council and climate change. The two top diplomats agreed to continue working together on the international stage down the road.

* The ROK and Mexico, both members of the G20, the OECD, APEC and the Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group, hold similar positions on the proposed reform of the UN Security Council and climate change.

7. The high-level policy consultation is seen to have served as an opportunity for Mexico to reaffirm its strong willingness to work more closely with the ROK across the board and for the two countries to discuss in depth ways to increase substantive cooperation in a mutually beneficial manner.


* unofficial translation