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As it was written in Korean, I has just translated this article in English for my Romanian friends and colleagues to take a look. 

My article reads as following;  

Our two countries’ friendship dates back to even before we established formal diplomatic relations in 1990. 

In 1919, right after the end of the First World War, the then-Korean Provisional Government exiled in Shanghai secretly dispatched independent activists to the Paris Peace Conference to plead for the restoration of sovereignty from the colonial rule in front of the great powers, including Romania. 

The victors of World War I turned a deaf ear to the pleas of the impoverished, unknown colony and refused their request.

In those disappointing moments, a compassionate representative came up to the Korean delegates and encouraged them: “Korea will soon become an independent country and rise again, just as my country has done 50 years ago after a long struggle to achieve nationhood.”

The representative who encouraged our delegates was a Romanian diplomat who attended the Paris Conference as a delegation of victorious power. 

This story is well-documented in the book ‘La Corée, la belle inconnue de l'Extrême-Orient à l'heure des Jeux olympiques (The beautiful stranger from the far East at the Olympic Games),’ written by Constantin Vigil Gheorghiu, the Romanian author of the renowned novel ‘La Vingt-cinquième heure ( The twenty-fifth hour).’

As he encouraged, the Republic of Korea has risen to one of the most advanced countries in the world with a fully functioning democracy. Out of more than seventy ambassadors residing in Bucharest, only seven fly their country's flags on sedans that bear their national brands; I, the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, am one of those seven ambassadors.

During my service, I have noticed two big gaps existing between Korea and Romania. First, Romania has high expectations from Korea, while for many Koreans Romania is still a relatively unfamiliar country. A comparison of the number of Koreans visiting Romania, either for tourism or for business, with the number of Koreans visiting Romania’s neighbouring countries, highlight this disparity.

Second, there is a gap between the diplomatic and economic spheres. Korea and Romania enjoy the best diplomatic and political relations, with our relationship reaching a robust Strategic Partnership in 2008. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, our two countries helped each other overcome the crisis by mutually providing vaccines and medical equipment.

After the pandemic, our two countries engaged in unprecedented high-level exchanges in 2022. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke on the telephone with his Romanian counterpart only one month after taking office. The first country that our Speaker of the National Assembly made his official visit to since he began his term was Romania. In December 2022, a Romanian delegation, led by the Prime Minister and the President of the Chamber of Deputies, visited Korea with six ministers.

On the other hand, when it comes to our economic relations, the numbers fall short of our potential. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1990, the volume of cumulative investment has been a mere $1.13 billion, while the total trade volume in 2022 was only around $1.3 billion.

In order to reduce these gaps, I have been promoting my own strategy to both Korean and Romanian audiences. 

 First, I can’t improve economic numbers to striking heights in a short period of time. Rather, my strategy is to make ‘success stories and best examples’ of big investment projects initially at the government-level, which can then have forward and backward-linkage effects. Once we have a success story, it will send a strong signal to private sectors and consequently lead to increased investments on both sides.

Second, economic cooperation must be developed in a mutually beneficial and sustainable way, instead of one-offs or one-way traffic.  Exemplary areas include defense, nuclear energy, and infrastructure. Cooperation in these areas can take place only between strategic partners. 

This year (2023) marks the 15th anniversary of our two countries' strategic partnership, the first of its kind in Asia. As part of these efforts, the first edition of Business Council meeting was held in Bucharest this February, the first time since diplomatic relations were established. 

Romania has many advantages and potential: its membership in the EU and NATO, its geo-economic location as gateway to the European markets, its size (1.1 times the size of the Korean Peninsula) and population (around 20 million people), as well as its young, well-educated, and motivated workforce. 

Our two countries are also geopolitically similar and share related security concerns. Romania serves as a bastion of liberal democracy at the forefront of NATO's Eastern flank, while Korea is located at the northernmost post of democracies in the Northeast Asia. 

Because our security and economic interests converge and our two countries are currently enjoying the best diplomatic relations based on strategic interests and shared values, now is the time for our cooperation to be reflected through an enhanced level of investment and trade.

Personally, I have been serving in Bucharest as a Korean diplomat to pay back what we owed from Romania 100 years ago in Paris.

I will do my best to make Korea and Romania the most reliable partners in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia by creating the best environment to benefit our two peoples.

Writer & Source of information: Kap-soo Rim(Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Romania)