Addis Ababa - South Korea congratulated Angola on Friday, on its election as first vice-president of the African Union (AU) for this year, member of the Peace and Security Council (CPS) for the period from 2024 to 2026 and acting president of the continental organization, in 2025.
According to a note sent to ANGOP, the congratulatory message was presented by the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, Chung Byungwon, during a working meeting with the Angolan ambassador to Ethiopia and permanent representative to the AU and UNECA, Miguel Domingos Bembe.
According to the South Korean official, Angola's election as the first vice-president of the African Union and its presidency in 2025 could bring new dynamics to the continental organization and the process of strategic cooperation with South Korea.
On the occasion, the official reported on the preparations for the Special Africa-Korea Summit, scheduled for the fourth and fifth of June this year, under the motto “The future we build together: shared growth, sustainability and solidarity”.
He considered the presence of African Heads of State and Government at the event to be essential, given the long-term strategic cooperation that his country intends to establish with Africa, in the most varied areas.
For his part, Ambassador Miguel Bembe considered the cooperative relations between the two countries to be excellent and welcomed the efforts of the South Korean Government to successfully hold the Africa-Korea Summit.
He suggested that it be widely disseminated not only bilaterally with African countries, but also with the African Union.
Africa faces several political and security challenges, he highlighted, recommending that response efforts focus not only on the consequences, but above all on the causes.
In this context, he identified the economic and social sectors as fundamental to making the dream of African integration a reality.
He presented the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA), one of the flagship projects of the AU Agenda 2063, as a crucial and decisive step, with it being imperative to accelerate the process of its implementation.
The Angolan ambassador considered it necessary to define a post-Summit action plan and highlighted some areas of priority interest for Angola and the African continent, namely the creation of production and circulation infrastructures, transformation and conservation industries, the training of human resources and information and communication/digitalization technologies.
The process of sustainable African integration is also part of these, with a strong focus on extra-governmental sectors, namely the private and business sector, he said.MCN/DOJ
