South Korea and the United States on April 9 held a kickoff meeting for the Korea-U.S. Technology Prosperity Working Group and began cooperation to implement a bilateral technology prosperity memorandum of understanding.

The two countries had agreed to launch the working group to implement the MOU signed in October last year. The meeting was the first official session. South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and Ministry of Foreign Affairs attended. The U.S. side included the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the State Department.

The two sides established the working group’s structure and operating framework and discussed its final goals and areas of cooperation. The working group will run subcommittees for each technology field to identify specific cooperation items and will announce results through the 12th Korea-U.S. Joint Committee Meeting on Science and Technology at the end of this year.

Hwang Sung-hoon (황성훈), director-general for international cooperation at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said he would use the working group meeting as an opportunity to produce concrete cooperation results. He said he would continue efforts so Korea-U.S. science and technology cooperation can make a tangible contribution to bilateral relations.