Korea-Cambodia Summit meeting takes place in Phnom Penh on Oct. 22.

The President and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen held a bilateral summit in Cambodia''s Foreign Ministry building on Oct. 22.

President Lee highly praised the outstanding bilateral relationship the two countries have had since they normalized diplomatic ties in 1997. The bilateral trade volume increased from US$50 million to $308 million from 1997 to 2008, and Korea''s investment into Cambodia went up 75-fold to $2.5 billion over the same period.

The President pointed out the difficulties that Korean investors in Cambodia are having and asked for the Prime Minister''s active support in troubleshooting.

The two countries also signed an extradition treaty, which is considered to have marked a turning point in their judicial cooperation, and promised to further expand the scope of the collaboration.

 
During the summit, Korea announced its decision to revise its Economic Development Cooperation Fund to Cambodia from $120 million (2008-2011) to $200 million (2009-2012), and to expand its official development aid to the country as well. Korea also promised to support the development of Cambodia''s green growth industries.

The two countries further agreed to escalate their joint efforts in forestation, mineral resources development and broadcast contents development, by signing memorandums of understanding. For one, Korea agreed to develop forest land of 200,000 hectares (as large as Korea''s Jeju Island) in Cambodia. The two sides also agreed to boost collaboration between their chambers of commerce through the conclusion of MOUs.