Joint Statement of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and Republic of Korea President Moon Jae-in
Presidential Communications Operations Office | June 4, 2018
[SEE FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW]
Presidential Communications Office
Presidential News Desk
JOINT STATEMENT OF PRESIDENT RODRIGO ROA DUTERTE AND REPUBLIC OF KOREA PRESIDENT MOON JAE-IN
[Delivered at the Cheong Wa Dae, Seoul | 04 June 2018]
PRESIDENT MOON: I would like to warmly welcome President Duterte and his delegation to Korea once again.
This was my second meeting with President Duterte six months after our meeting on the margins of the ASEAN Summit in November last year.
We had a very meaningful time reaffirming the importance of our bilateral relations as well as the friendship between the two of us.
The Republic of Korea and the Philippines are very special friends. The Philippines was the first amongst Southeast Asian countries to establish diplomatic relations with Korea.
No less than 7,500 Filipino soldiers participated in the Korean War, shed blood with us to safeguard freedom and save lives. Our bilateral relations have developed on this solid foundation.
Today, the Philippines is a key partner in implementing the New Southern Policy that my government is vigorously carrying out.
In our meetings today, President Duterte and I had in-depth discussions on ways to develop our bilateral relations in a more future-oriented manner and we agreed to put them into action.
First, we shared the view that various high level exchanges represent an important foundation upon which to develop our bilateral ties.
As such, there will be more meetings between high-level officials from our two countries in the days to come including at the leaders’ level which will lead to closer cooperation.
We will start off with activating the high level consultation mechanism to ensure full and swift implementation of the outcome of today’s meetings.
Second, we will continue to develop our substantive cooperation to ensure that the people of our two countries will be able to fully grasp the fruits of this cooperation.
In this regard, the two leaders agreed to significantly increase our bilateral trade volume that currently stands at approximately 15 billion dollars and to further expand the investment between our two countries.
The Philippines is currently working to realize national Vision 2040 under President Duterte’s outstanding leadership.
I take my hats off to President Duterte’s leadership which has enabled rapid economic growth and social stability, drawing great support from the people of the Philippines in the process.
The Republic of Korea will also actively participate in the national developments of the Philippines. In particular, I look forward to seeing the Korean companies’ participation further expanded in the fields of transportation, energy and infrastructure through our cooperation in the new industries such as infocommunications as well as science and technology. We will create the growth engine for the future together.
In addition, President Duterte and I expressed mutual appreciation for our erstwhile efforts to boost agricultural productivity. Going one step further, we agreed to strengthen our cooperation in utilizing the smart greenhouse technology and experience.
Third, the people of our two countries will visit each other more frequently and enhance the understanding in communication among them. The total number of respective visitors has now surpassed the two million mark, while Koreans are the most frequent visitors to the Philippines today, among all other foreigners.
President Duterte and I agreed to designate the year 2019 as the year of mutual exchanges between Korea and the Philippines to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of our diplomatic relations.
We agree to accelerate people-to-people exchanges along with various cultural cooperation projects.
I hope to see more people from the Philippines visit Korea as well. There are currently 93,000 Koreans living in the Philippines, while 60,000 Filipinos are living in Korea.
We agreed to make extensive efforts to protect the safety, rights, and interest of our nationals including through cooperation between our respective public safety authorities.
President Duterte promised to pay closer attention and provide support towards protecting the lives and the safety of Korean nationals in the Philippines. I’d like to thank him once again.
The Korean government will strengthen the protection and support for the multicultural families and migrant workers from the Philippines in Korea.
We will actively safeguard the human rights through a variety of institutional support including counseling centers for foreign workers and multicultural family support centers.
President Duterte displayed a keen interest in our efforts to achieve complete denuclearization and permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula and expressed his strong support.
His support will be of great help to us on our journey to establish peace on the Korean Peninsula.. Our two countries will further strengthen our cooperation and that goes beyond the Peninsula to uphold peace in the region.
President Duterte’s visit to Korea has provided an important impetus for elevating our friendly and cooperative ties to an even higher level. I hope President Duterte and his delegation find this trip very worthwhile.
Maraming, maraming salamat po.. Kamsahamnida.
Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT DUTERTE: [Very good. Nice Tagalog.]
I thank His Excellency President Moon Jae-in for his gracious invitation for me to visit Seoul.
This Official Visit is important as it underscores the long-standing ties and the common commitment of both the Philippines and the Republic of Korea to work together in achieving greater things for our nations.
As we have a shared past, so too do we have a shared future. It is clear to me that we need stronger cooperation and more dynamic collaboration in order to achieve our goals.
My summit meeting with President Moon was very productive. We discussed matters of paramount importance to our bilateral relations.
This includes political and economic cooperation, defense and security, trade and investments, infrastructure, information and smart technologies, agriculture, protection of our nationals, and the environment.
This expanded and more comprehensive partnership is needed to bring our relations forward [in] this modern century.
The Philippines has much to learn from South Korea’s story of successful transformation into a global economic powerhouse. This is why we are keen on partnering with [South] Korea in advancing new and innovative backbones of our modern development.
The Philippines is working to transform our own [economy and] to modernize to meet the challenges of this century. In this regard, [intensified] cooperation is needed in trade and investments, including the opening up of new markets.
The signing of bilateral agreements promises not just a growth for our economies but also ushers in a new era of stronger cooperation and partnership.
President Moon and I likewise emphasized the need for security and stability in the region. After all, these are the foundations of solid growth for both our nations.
We renewed the value of cooperation to address and prevent traditional and emerging threats. We discussed strengthening collaboration in defense and security to counter terrorism, transnational crime and crimes at sea.
I commended President Moon for his vision of bringing peace, stability, and prosperity to the Korean Peninsula. His selfless dedication is demonstrated by the historic Inter-Korean Summit last month which resulted in the “Panmunjom Declaration [for] Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula.”
The Philippines is hopeful that positive developments over the past several months will continue and contribute positively toward the goal of denuclearization in [the] Korean Peninsula.
As responsible members of the community of nations, the Philippines and South Korea will continue supporting each other in regional and in the international fora.
We also agreed to do our utmost to uphold the welfare and safeguard and protect our nationals in our countries.
Finally, we reaffirmed the long and enduring ties between our two peoples that was forged in defense of freedom and democracy nearly seven decades ago.
This Official Visit gives us a renewed sense of commitment to work closely together in writing a new chapter of cooperation, friendship and partnership between our nations.
Thank you.
— END —
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