S.Korea's Park offers logistics cooperation with China, US, Russia in Eurasia

SEOUL - South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday proposed stronger transport and logistics cooperation in the Eurasian region together with China, the United States and Russia.

Park said during her congratulatory remarks at a logistics symposium held in central Seoul that the proper linking of logistics and transport networks in Eurasia would be more important than anything else to make the Eurasian region's infinite potentials realized.

Citing China's "Belt and Road" initiative, Russia's Far Eastern region development policy and the U.S. new Silk Road initiative, President Park offered to strengthen mutual cooperation between the initiatives that have been pushed for individually.

Park said that South Korea has been also pushing for the Eurasia initiative, an economic project to boost logistics and energy cooperation among Eurasian nations by linking roads and railways from the two Koreas to Europe via China and Russia.

The "Belt and Road" initiative, which means the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, was proposed by China in 2013 to bring together countries in Asia, Europe and even Africa via land and maritime networks for the purpose of boosting infrastructure building, financial cooperation and cultural exchanges.

Park said that building networks in the landmass of Eurasia could be realized only after countries concerned share their respective visions and plans and push for infrastructure projects to support those visions organically.

South Korea has made efforts to realize the vision in Eurasia by pushing to re-link the Gyeongwon Line that once connected the country's capital city of Seoul to Wonsan, the eastern port city of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Park said.

South Korea has also participated in the Rajin-Khasan project by purchasing a stake from Russia. The Russia-DPRK railway project was launched in 2007 to renovate the 54-kilometer rail line from the DPRK's Rajin port to Russia's border city of Khasan.