SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - Kazakhstan will press South Korea this week to widen a partnership built largely on car plants into artificial intelligence, data infrastructure and processed critical minerals, an agenda President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev carried into Seoul on Monday at the start of a state visit.
Deputy Prime Minister and Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon met the Kazakh leader at the airport. Tokayev came at the invitation of President Lee Jae Myung, and the two will hold a bilateral summit on Tuesday afternoon.
The visit is built around the first South Korea-Central Asia Summit, which Lee will chair in Seoul on Wednesday afternoon. It gathers the leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and it is the first time South Korea has met the region as a group at the level of heads of state. Seoul and the five capitals have been talking since 2007 through the Korea-Central Asia Cooperation Forum, but that body never rose above the ministerial level.
Tokayev is one of three leaders here on a state visit, the highest category of official reception, alongside the presidents of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The leaders of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are making official visits. Lee is meeting all five in turn, starting Monday afternoon and finishing Wednesday morning, before the six of them sit down together.
Cheong Wa Dae has set the summit under the theme of cooperation and partnership for stronger innovation, prosperity and connectivity. Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said the meeting will produce a Seoul Declaration laying out a framework for the medium to long term, turning what has been a series of ministerial conversations into a standing structure at the leader level.
What Seoul wants from the region is material. Central Asia holds large reserves of the minerals that go into batteries, semiconductors and electric motors, and South Korea has the exploration and processing technology but almost none of the ore. Cheong Wa Dae said it will use the summit to pair the two, reducing the concentration of supply chains that now run overwhelmingly through China.
Beyond minerals, the presidential office wants to open the region to South Korean construction and plant contractors through cooperation tailored to each country's infrastructure needs, and to smooth the customs procedures, regulations and intellectual property rules that trip up companies working there. Talks will also cover artificial intelligence, digital technology, science, climate response, water management and disaster preparedness.
Security is on the agenda as well. Seoul will seek the region's backing on Korean Peninsula issues and press for joint work against terrorism, narcotics and cybercrime, an area where cooperation has already produced results. Kazakh and South Korean authorities recently broke up a voice phishing ring, arresting 19 people over fraud worth 5.8 billion won, about $4.3 million.
People-to-people ties form the fourth strand. Next year marks 90 years since ethnic Koreans were deported to Central Asia under Stalin in 1937, and the government plans to expand Korean language and cultural education and youth exchange programs across the region ahead of that anniversary. Kazakhstan is home to roughly 120,000 ethnic Koreans.
Kazakhstan arrives with a narrower and more specific list. The Kazakh Embassy in Seoul said Astana wants to move the relationship past the automotive assembly that has defined it, using that industry as a template rather than an endpoint.
The template is visible on the ground. Hyundai Motor Company assembles vehicles in Almaty, Kia Corporation opened a plant last year in Kostanay, built to turn out 70,000 cars a year, Samsung Electronics runs production in the Karaganda region, and Doosan Enerbility is building a 1,000-megawatt power station in Turkestan. More than 700 companies with South Korean capital operate in the country.
Artificial intelligence and data infrastructure sit at the top of what Kazakhstan wants next. The country is expanding its computing capacity, which Astana argues creates openings for South Korean firms in data centers, the power supply those centers require and the cooling systems that keep them running.
On minerals, the Kazakh position is that exporting ore is not the goal. Kazakhstan holds significant reserves of uranium, copper, chromium and zinc, and wants processing plants, higher value manufacturing and a place inside South Korean battery and electronics supply chains rather than a role at the bottom of them. A planned research center for rare earth metals is part of that push.
Geography is the third argument. Kazakhstan is the largest economy in Central Asia and sits astride the overland routes between Asia and Europe. It is spending heavily on railways and on the Trans-Caspian corridor, which moves freight west across the Caspian Sea and bypasses Russia, a selling point for South Korean exporters looking for alternatives to existing routes.
Astana has also signaled that it will judge the summit by what comes after it rather than by the language of the declaration, saying it wants named projects, identified partners, financing arranged and timelines that can actually be met. Kazakhstan and South Korea currently have 46 joint industrial projects at various stages, worth roughly $4 billion, spanning vehicle production, engineering, metallurgy and electronics.
Bilateral trade reached $3.17 billion last year. South Korean direct investment in Kazakhstan has totaled about $8 billion over the past decade. The two countries established diplomatic relations in 1992 and upgraded them to a strategic partnership in 2009.
AJP Takeaways
- Kassym-Jomart Tokayev arrived in Seoul on Monday at the invitation of President Lee Jae Myung, one of three Central Asian leaders here on a state visit, and will hold a bilateral summit with Lee on Tuesday afternoon.
- Cheong Wa Dae will chair the first South Korea-Central Asia Summit on Wednesday afternoon with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, adopting a Seoul Declaration that raises a cooperation framework running at ministerial level since 2007 to the level of heads of state.
- Cheong Wa Dae is pairing Central Asia's mineral reserves with South Korean exploration and processing technology to cut supply chain dependence on China, while also pursuing infrastructure and plant contracts, customs and intellectual property rules, artificial intelligence and digital cooperation, and joint action against terrorism, narcotics and cybercrime.
- The Kazakh Embassy in Seoul said Astana wants to move past automotive assembly into artificial intelligence, data center infrastructure and domestic mineral processing, and will measure the summit by named projects, identified partners, arranged financing and workable timelines rather than by the declaration text.
- Kazakhstan and South Korea have 46 joint industrial projects worth roughly $4 billion under way, bilateral trade reached $3.17 billion last year, and South Korean direct investment has totaled about $8 billion over the past decade. AJP verified these figures against Kazakh government sources rather than the wire interview that first surfaced them.
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