Thursday, May 31, 2012 -
Kyrgyz premier Omurbek Babanov arrived in Korea on Thursday as part of continued efforts by his business-focused government to increase foreign investment in the Central Asian state.
One of his first visits during the trip was to the Kyrgyz-Korean investment business forum taking place in the Korean capital Seoul, where he sought to tout Kyrgyzstan as a forward-looking democracy and a safe place for foreign investors.
“Kyrgyzstan is the first country in the Central Asian region to select parliamentary development,” the Kabar.kg news agency reported Babanov as saying.
“Today, we have created all the necessary conditions and opportunities for investment. Business people can participate in auctions without search intermediaries with links to the government, as it was before. We carry out a transparent policy in all sectors of the economy.”
He urged high-tech Korean firms to look towards the Kyrgyz economic sectors of agriculture and energy.
“We all know that in developed countries, high-tech demand for rare earth metals is high,” he said. “We expect that in the near future we will sign bilateral investment projects worth hundreds of millions U.S. dollars.”