South Korean President Park Geun-hye and visiting German President Joachim Gauck agreed Monday to beef up bilateral cooperation in car-used information technology (IT) and smart factory.
Gauck arrived in Seoul Sunday for his four-day state visit to South Korea at the invitation of Park who traveled to the European country in March 2014, according to Park's office.
With Park and Gauck in attendance, the Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) and German carmaker BMW signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to strengthen cooperation and exchanges in converging the auto technology with information technology (IT). The KETI is specialized in research and development for auto IT, Internet of Things (IoT) and sensors.
The leaders also agreed to more closely cooperate in the smart factory sector to automate and raise efficiency in production among manufacturers through big data analysis, optimized plant lineup, smart sensors and so on.
Park and Gauck agreed to make efforts to take a balanced approach to trade and investment between the two countries as South Korea has suffered from a huge deficit in trade with Germany.
South Korea's trade deficit with Germany amounted to 13.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2014, tripling a deficit of 3.48 billion dollars in 2009.
The Asian nation's exports to Germany tumbled 13.6 percent to 7. 6 billion U.S. dollars in the cited period, but imports surged 56. 9 percent to 21.3 billion U.S. dollars.
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