Park shows Mozambique support

President Park Geun-hye, right, shakes hands with Mozambique’s President Armando Guebuza yesterday in the Blue House. [Joint Press Corps]

President Park Geun-hye yesterday promised her government’s support for Mozambique’s development by sharing Korea’s experience in her summit with the leader of the African nation.

President Armando Guebuza of Mozambique visited the Blue House yesterday for a summit with Park, and the two leaders discussed efforts to expand bilateral cooperation and exchanges.

During the summit, Park also expressed her hope for wider opportunities for Korea to work with the African nation with massive energy servers and natural resources.

Since Korea established diplomatic relations with Mozambique in 1993, Guebuza was the first leader of the nation to visit Korea and the summit was Park’s second meeting with an African leader in less than a week.

On Thursday, Park met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, kicking off her government’s diplomatic campaign for Africa.

During the luncheon, Park said Korea was able to succeed in self-supplying of food by developing a new strain of rice with the varieties introduced from Africa in the 1960s and ’70s and reforming rural villages through the Saemaeul Movement, a government-led campaign to pull the country out of postwar poverty.

“I believe the experience of Korea’s farming village development and the spirit of the Saemaeul Movement will contribute to the development of Mozambique,” Park said.

“Korea also hopes to contribute more in human resources development and establishment of industrial foundation of Mozambique for its sustainable growth,” she said.

“We also want to strengthen our cooperation in infrastructure construction and energy resources industry of the country.”

Guebuza also replied yesterday that he has high anticipation for the two countries’ cooperation.

Noting that ending the poverty is the key goal of Mozambique’s national agenda, he stressed that his country is putting special efforts to develop human resources to this end.

He also said Mozambique saw great progress in expanding its mobile network and providing Internet services as well as electricity, but the country has a lot to learn from Korea.

By Ser Myo-ja [myoja@joongang.co.kr]