UZBEKISTAN - South Korean JVs.

Presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Karimov agreed during their summit in Soul last March to increase bilateral relations and form a strategic partnership for JVs. Karimov arrived in Seoul on March 28 for a three-day visit reciprocating Roh's visit to Tashkent in May 2005.

The state-owned Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC), Korea Gas Corp (Kogas) and UNG signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) giving them exclusive rights to explore and extract from two oil and two gas fields in Uzbekistan. KNOC and UNG were to begin preliminary exploration in Chust-Pap and Namangen-Terachi in the eastern part of Uzbekistan. Based on the outcome of this, KNOC will decide whether to sign development contracts sometime around December 2006. Chust-Pap is said to hold 385m barrels of oil; Namangen is estimated to have about 435m barrels.

Korea Resources Corp. (KRC) signed a separate agreement to jointly develop uranium, iron and gold mines in the central part of Uzbekistan. South Korea's Commerce and Industry Minister Chung Sye-kyun and Uzbek Minister for Foreign Economic Relations Alisher Erkinovich Shaikhov signed an MoU on development of energy and other natural resources.

(South Korea has stepped up its energy diplomacy aimed at energy-rich countries in Asia, South and Central America and most recently Africa. During an hour-long summit at Cheong Wa Dae, Roh and Karimov discussed ways of fortifying bilateral co-operation and supporting about 200,000 ethnic Koreans in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan has the largest ethnic Korean population in Central Asia, mostly descendants of Koreans who settled in the Soviet Far East but forced to move to Central Asia by Stalin after World War II. This is Karimov's fourth visit to Korea since establishment of bilateral ties in 1992. Prior to Roh's visit to Tashkent, former President Kim Young-sam visited Uzbekistan in 1994).