SEOUL, Nov 6: Pakistan and South Korea here on Thursday signed three arrangements and a cooperation agreement providing for bilateral cooperation in the field of information technology, oil, gas and mineral sector, and one relating to export and commercial credit facilities.

The arrangement on cooperation in the IT covered areas like e-government and public information, software development, e-education, development of human resources in IT, exchange of experts, holding joint ICT exhibitions and seminars.

Under the arrangement on the oil and mineral resources, the two countries have decided to establish the Pakistan-Korea joint working group on energy and mineral cooperation.

The working group will undertake joint feasibility studies for cooperation in energy and mineral resources fields.

The working group will report results of the studies and recommend measures for possible joint ventures in the energy and mineral resources sectors.

The two arrangements were signed at the presidential palace in the presence of the presidents of the two countries and their delegations, immediately after the summit talks.

Foreign Secretary Riaz H. Khokhar and Ambassador Syed Pervez Hussain signed the arrangements, respectively.

Later in the afternoon, Korea EXIM Bank and Pakistan signed a cooperation agreement.

The agreement provides Korean assurance for its EDCF, export, commercial credit and relending facilities for development and commercial projects in Pakistan.

Dong-Kyu Shin, Chairman, Korea EXIM Bank, and Pakistan’s Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz signed the agreement.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Aziz said this agreement would provide a major boost to the economic cooperation between the two countries.

He said foreign investors in Pakistan “can have 100 per cent equity” with the facility to borrow locally.

He also said that Korean household products and other goods were increasingly popular in Pakistan.

He referred to the problem of rising variable costs in Korea forcing the local industrialists to consider moving their facilities abroad. He said the Korean investors should take advantage of the favourable environment in Pakistan and bring in their investment.

That will also bring them closer to the markets in the Middle East, Gulf and the central Asia and other regions. A MoU was also signed between Korea Software Industry Association and Pakistan Software Houses Association.

The MoU provided for exchange of information, development of human resource in the IT and exploration of possibilities of further cooperation between the private sector IT companies of the two countries.—APP