President Park Geun-hye's visit to East Africa is expected to both boost diplomatic ties... and ramp up business cooperation with the region.
For more on what opportunities Uganda may offer Korea, Kim Min-ji reports.
Dubbed the pearl of Africa,... Uganda is known for its beautiful scenery and abundant water resources.
Its core industry is agriculture, with more than 70 percent of the working population involved,... and exports of coffee and tea are some of the main sources of cash for the country.
Recently, oil has been discovered -- with an estimated eight billion barrels to be retrieved.


"Uganda has great agricultural potential -- it has the most fertile land in Africa and also abundance of water resources, so that makes Uganda quite promising country for commercial farming."

Despite being one of the world's poorest countries,... with GDP per capita at roughly 700 U.S. dollars,... it's achieved steady economic growth in the five to seven percent range.
All in all, its GDP has more than doubled in the past ten years.
Now, it's seeking to become a middle income nation by 2040
and hopes to shift away from agriculture... to manufacturing and services,... as well as pull up its income per capita to 95-hundred dollars.

South Korea and Uganda established economic ties 1963,... but haven't been able to develop their relations much beyond that,... due to Uganda's friendly relationship with North Korea.
So, economic ties between South Korea and Uganda have been close to non-existent -- trade has been on the rise but still just a fraction of Seoul's total trade volume.
But with the president's trip and Uganda's growing interest in Korea's Saemaul Undong,... experts say it may be able to give relations between the countries a shot in the arm.


"Most African countries have a positive view of South Korea for its efforts to become an economic power... from the ruins of war. They want to learn from this. So it's expected that we will be able to bring about mutual achieve