Summary of Ambassador Skand R. Tayal's opening speech during the launch of Daedeok Korean-Indo Forum on Wednesday, 24 February 2010

We had the President of Republic of Korea Lee Myung Bak visiting India as the state-guest of our 61st Republic Day celebrations. During the visit an important decision was made to create a dedicated S&T corpus fund of US$ 10 million (with a contribution of US$ 5 million by each side) to promote joint research. The fund would serve as a seed capital for joint Science and Technology Research and Investment.

 The idea was initiated when our former President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam paid a State Visit to the Republic of Korea in February 2006 at the invitation of the President of the Republic of Korea. This was the first ever visit by the President of India to the Republic of Korea. One of the major outcomes of the visit was the signing of Agreement on Cooperation in the fields of Science and Technology. Dr. Kalam during the visit envisioned cooperation to jointly develop new technology. The fund created would make the vision come true.

The strength of Korean side is their ability to bring technology out of laboratory desks. We bring to table a large pool of world-class Scientists and Engineers with a sound knowledge of English. So I sincerely hope that our partnership is bound to succeed.

To put it in a broader perspective, one can say that our bilateral relationship is venturing from Cooperation into a new paradigm of Partnership. There fore when President Lee was visiting India, our two leaders decided to enhance bilateral relations to the level of Strategic Partnership.

I had a press conference before this meeting, where one of the journalists asked about the future areas of cooperation in Science and Technology between our two nations. The future areas of joint research and cooperation would be Energy exploration, Nuclear Technology, Information technology and peaceful use of Outer Space. I am sure this launch of Daedeok Korean-Indo forum would be an important milestone in all these joint S&T endeavors.