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Primorye’s Governor Sergei Darkin met on Tuesday the newly appointed S. Korean Consul in Vladivostok Kim Moo Young to discuss further prospects of partnership between the region and South Korea, a statement from the regional administration reported.

Darkin spoke of further development of trade relations with South Korea and urged South Korean businesses to participate in investment projects related to the 2012 APEC summit planned to be held in Vladivostok.

Kim Moo Young, who took up the duties in mid December, expressed his interest in the regional projects, the most prospective of them being construction of an oil pipeline to stretch from Russia’s eastern Siberia to Primorye.

At the meeting, Darkin and Kim Moo Young also spoke on their participating in the summit devoted to international cooperation of Northeast Asian countries’ regional administrations to be held in Vladivostok in September.

In the past few years, S. Korea and Primorye have been actively cooperating in trade and the economic sphere, as well as in culture, arts and tourism. Primorye has favorable conditions for expanding tourist links with S. Korea, with direct flights connecting Vladivostok with Seoul and Busan airports. Regular sea routes deliver passengers and various types of cargo from S. Korean ports to Vladivostok and Nakhodka.

South Korea makes the top three countries which Primorye has the biggest volume of foreign operations with. In 2006, the trade revenue between Primorye and S. Korea amounted to 14 percent of the region’s overall turnover volume. For the first nine months of 2007, the figure was $504.1 million, the exports to S. Korea being fish and sea products, scrap metal and timber.