South Korea's New Southern Policy is in sync with India's Act East Policy and a much more robust bilateral partnership can be built if the two countries are able to tap their full potential through these policies, South Korean envoy Shin Bongkil said on Monday.
The main focus of India's Act East Policy is to shift the country's trading focus from the west and neighbours to the booming South East Asian countries.
South Korea's 'New Southern Policy' focuses on South Korea's development of its relations with Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Shin, speaking at a conference on 'towards building a more robust India-Korea partnership', said India is now as important for South Korea as its four traditional partners -- the US, China, Japan and Russia.
"Korea now has a foreign policy which focusses specially on ASEAN and India. Now for Korea, India is as important a partner as its other four traditional partners. South Korea's Southern policy is in sync with India's Act East policy and if we are able to tap its potential, we would be able to build a much more robust partnership between the two countries," he said.
Noting that South Korea has a "genuine desire" to further develop strategic bilateral partnership, Shin said until very recently the two countries were not able to forge ties as expected from the two countries.
"Despite convergence in our strategic interests, Korea and India has not been able to forge a kind of strategic agenda of cooperation which is genuinely expected from strategic partners in fact until very recently Korea did not figure primarily in the foreign policy spectrum of India," he said.
"When India announced its much celebrated Look East Policy, it remained confined to building trade and investment relations with ASEAN countries and didn't extend to Korea," he said.
Shin, however, noted that now that phase of "historical neglect in our bilateral relations is over".
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in have understanding of the combined strengths and potentials of our two countries and they have injected a new dynamism in our relations," he said.
He further said India and Korea are taking concrete steps to build bilateral relations.
"We are in discussion with NITI Aayog to institute a high-level economic dialogue with Korea's presidential committee to enhance mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries," he added.
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