news highlight

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  Korea, Turkmenistan broaden economic partnership at summit SEOUL, September 15 (AJP) - South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedow agreed Tuesday to expand cooperation in investment, infrastructure, shipbuilding and public security as the two countries signed 13 agreements and memorandums of understanding. Lee met Berdimuhamedow, who is on a state visit to South Korea, at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul ahead of the inaugural Korea-Central Asia Summit. The agreements cover investment protection, chemical and September 15, 2026
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  Korea courts Uzbekistan on minerals before Central Asia summit SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - Critical minerals, high-speed rail and defense exports drove the opening round of South Korea's Central Asia summit week on Monday. President Lee Jae Myung received Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at Cheong Wa Dae, the first of five regional leaders arriving in Seoul. Hours earlier, the industry ministry had convened the first Korea-Central Asia industry ministers' meeting at a hotel in central Seoul. The industry chiefs of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz September 14, 2026
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  ADB backs Korean minerals push in Central Asia SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - The search for critical minerals in Central Asia picked up a lender on Monday, when the Asian Development Bank said it was ready to co-finance South Korean projects across the region, two days before the first Korea-Central Asia Summit opens in Seoul. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is Uzbekistan's largest investor, with more than $15 billion in cumulative assistance, and agreed this year on an indicative country program worth $12.4 billion running September 14, 2026
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  Korea exports AI statistics know-how to Kazakhstan SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - The agency that counts Kazakhstan's people, prices and harvests signed an agreement Monday to rebuild how it does that work with South Korean help, putting artificial intelligence and government administrative records at the center of the effort. South Korea's Ministry of Data and Statistics (MODS) signed the memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan's Bureau of National Statistics of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms of the Re September 14, 2026
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  Kazakhstan turns from steppe image to AI testbed SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - Beggars at bus terminals and market stalls in Kazakhstan set out a coin tin and, beside it, a transfer number. Most people walking past do not reach for change. They open an app and send the money. The app is Kaspi, and almost everything in the country now moves through it. Order coffee in an Almaty café and nine of 10 customers take out a phone, because a QR code taped to the wall does the work a card terminal used to do. The same application ha September 14, 2026
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  Tokayev arrives for summit as Kazakhstan eyes AI and minerals deals SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - Kazakhstan will press South Korea this week to widen a partnership built largely on car plants into artificial intelligence, data infrastructure and processed critical minerals, an agenda President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev carried into Seoul on Monday at the start of a state visit. Deputy Prime Minister and Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon met the Kazakh leader at the airport. Tokayev came at the invitation of President Lee Jae Myung, and the two wi September 14, 2026
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  Uzbekistan seeks tourism pact with Korea before summit SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - Hours before a South Korea-Uzbekistan summit in Seoul on Monday afternoon, the Uzbek government proposed a dedicated tourism agreement between the two countries' tourism authorities, seeking to turn eight years of visa-free travel into a working commercial relationship. Uzbekistan received about 7.75 million foreign tourists between January and July, up 22.6 percent from a year earlier, and earned roughly $3.9 billion from tourism services over the September 14, 2026
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  Lee holds five bilateral talks before Central Asia summit SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - President Lee Jae Myung will begin three days of back-to-back diplomacy with the leaders of five Central Asian countries from Monday, ahead of South Korea’s first multilateral summit with the region. Lee will hold a bilateral summit with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Monday afternoon, followed by talks with the leaders of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan on Tuesday and Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday. He is also scheduled to meet Asia September 14, 2026
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  Alatau City draws S. Korean partners ahead of Seoul summit SEOUL, September 14 (AJP) - Two South Korean technology firms agreed this month to build a digital model of Alatau City, a Kazakh new town that remains largely empty land, in the latest of a series of Korean commitments to the project ahead of Wednesday's first summit between South Korea and five Central Asian countries. The agreement was signed on September 9 at the World Smart City Expo in Busan by AST Holdings, ILJOO GnS and the Alatau City Authority. The following day, in September 14, 2026