Your Excellency! 

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate you and the entire people of South Korea cordially on behalf of the Uzbek people on a significant date in the history of our cooperation – the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Republic of Korea. 

We highly appreciate that our countries’ mutual relations, which have reached the level of genuine strategic partnership at the modern stage, have a thousand years of history, when through caravan paths of the Great Silk Road our peoples had intensive trade, diplomatic and cultural exchanges. 

Today the Uzbek-Korean relations, founded on firm traditions of friendship, mutual understanding and respect thanks primarily to both sides’ political will, are of a mature and mutually advantageous nature. 

The Republic of Korea, which has great economic, intellectual and industrial-technical potential and which plays an increasingly prestigious role in world economics and politics, has become one of the most reliable and long-term partners for our country since Uzbekistan obtained state independence. 

I would like to note with satisfaction that in recent years our countries were able to achieve significant progress in strengthening the foundations of their cooperation, maintaining a high level of an open and trust-based dialogue, broad interaction and support within international organizations. 

Uzbekistan consistently supports the peace-loving and considered foreign policy of the Republic of Korea and its efforts to ensure peace and security on the Korean peninsula and to turn it into a nuclear-free zone. 

I remember with great warmth your official visit to Uzbekistan in May 2016 and the joint participation in the launch ceremony of the Ustyurt gas chemical complex at the Surgil field, which we view as a bright symbol of our fruitful cooperation and an example to further equally big and significant projects. 

During our recent telephone conversation, I was very glad about the reaffirmation of the readiness of the government and business circles of the Republic of Korea to increase Uzbek-Korean cooperation in a very wide range of areas and to search for new ways and possibilities for strengthening the strategic partnership comprehensively. 

For my part, I would like to assure you again that the Republic of Uzbekistan and I personally are determined to further step up the trade-economic, financial-investment and technological cooperation with the Republic of Korea. In precisely these areas our countries’ relations had unprecedented development over the past 25 years. This is evident in large-scale joint high-tech investment projects in the energy, chemical, textile and car manufacturing spheres, infrastructure, transport, electronic government and telecommunications. 

A session of the intergovernmental commission for trade-economic cooperation that took place in Seoul in 2016 and a meeting of the finance ministers of the two countries made it possible to agree new areas of cooperation in a number of promising sectors. 

The dynamically developing cultural-humanitarian ties deserve to be evaluated highly as these help to extend the two peoples’ mutual understanding. In maintaining our countries’ friendly and close relations the large ethnic Korean diaspora, which this year will be celebrating 80 years of living in the generous Uzbek land, play a special role. 

I am sure that we will continue our trust-based constructive dialogue and cooperation for the purpose of strengthening the existing firm foundation for our countries’ relations and identifying new promising areas for effective partnership as part of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Uzbekistan and the Republic of Korea. 

Making use of this pleasant opportunity, I wish you, esteemed Hwang Kyo-ahn, robust health, wellbeing and success, and wish the friendly South Korean people happiness and further prosperity. 

With deep respect,