South Korea, Tanzania ramp up diplomatic, economic ties

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania and South Korea have signed an agreement on reciprocal exemption from visa requirements for holders of each country’s diplomatic and service passports.

The brief signing ceremony was held at the State House in Dar es Salaam today, Sunday July 22, by the Tanzania minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Dr Augustine Mahiga, and the South Korean first vice minister of the ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lim Sung-nam.

The event was witnessed by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa and his South Korean counterpart, Lee Nak-Yon, who arrived in the country on Saturday evening for a three-day working visit.

The signed agreements will ease movement into and out of the two countries of top government leaders holding diplomatic passports and civil servants holding service passports.

Before signing event Mr Majaliwa and his guest, held an official talks at the State House where among others they discussed better ways to strengthen the bilateral diplomatic relation.

“We have also discussed how best we can improve the business between Tanzania and South Korea, our economies, science, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and tourism," said Mr Majaliwa shortly after the signing ceremony.

On tourism, the prime minister said the two nations have agreed that South Korea will start promoting Tanzania’s tourism business as part of the continued efforts to boost the sector whose contribution to the GDP stands at 17.5 per cent -- and 25 per cent of foreign currency earnings.

“The job will be supervised by our ambassador to South Korea, Ms Batilda Masuka, while the South Korean envoy here, Song Geum Yong, will be doing the same for tourist attractions in his home country,” noted Prime minister.

Premier Majaliwa acknowledged the fact that South Korea has been supporting various development projects by providing soft loans to Tanzania.

“They have been supporting us in the construction of the Mloganzila hospital; National Identification Authority (Nida) data centre in the Kibaha District of the Coast Region; construction of the 3,200-metre Kigongo-Busisi bridge, and construction of the 42km tarmac road in Tabora Region,” he explained.

He went on to explain that South Korea will also play a part in the construction of five referral hospitals to be built in Tanzania in the near future.

Mr Majaliwa added that the government warmly welcomes more companies from the Republic of South Korea to invest in Tanzania.

While in the country, Mr Lee Nak-Yon will have the opportunity to meet President John Magufuli at State House, visit the Nida data centre in Kibaha and the Mnazi Mmoja hospital in Dar es Salaam, as well as attend a meeting of business community leaders from Tanzania and Korea.