WAM Abu Dhabi, May 23rd 2012 (WAM) -- Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of Foreign Trade has hailed strong relations between UAE and South Korea in all fields particularly in the non-oil trade sector.

"Trade ties between the two countries are based on mutual interest whereas partnership relations are unlimited between the countries," she said during her meeting with Hong Suk-woo, Korean Minister of Knowledge Economy at the ministry's headquarter here in Abu Dhabi. South Korean Ambassador to UAE Kwon Tae-Kyun was also present on the occasion.

The Korean minister was here to attend the first edition of Made in Korea (MIK 2012) exposition held at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre.

Sheikha Lubna said that UAE is benefitting from the economic diversification efforts after becoming a major hub in the Middle East for services in hospitality, tourism, transportation and logistic sectors that enabled the country to overcome the global financial crises in 2009 and as well as contributed in world economic growth.

She added UAE has become a global platform for rest of the countries to showcase their operations and expand their trade activities to regional and international markets.

She also hailed the strong relations between UAE and Korea in all fields particularly the non-oil trade exchange which has reached to 88% in 2011 amounting to AED 23.7 billion in comparison to AED 12.6 billion in 2010.

She stressed UAE's desire to benefit from the Korean expertise in innovation and supporting technology through research aimed at establishing knowledge and Technology-based economy.

For his part, Korean Minister said that the economic convergence between UAE and Korea calls for more efforts to support and stimulate investment activity and pushing communication channels among business sectors in particular through Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

WAM/HH/AM