14th FEALAC Cyber Secretariat Workshop

1. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs held the "14th East Asia-Latin America Cooperation Forum (FEALAC) Cyber Secretariat Workshop" on August 29 in Seoul under the theme of "Finding Future Cooperation Measures for FEALAC in the Age of Digital Transformation - Vision for the Next 25 Years."

* FEALAC, the only multilateral inter-governmental organization between East Asia and Latin America, was launched in 1999 with the aim to increase cooperation and understanding between the two regions and consists of 36 member states - 16 East Asian and 20 Latin American.

2. As the host country of the FEALAC Cyber Secretariat, the Republic of Korea has held the annual workshop since 2011. At the workshop of this year, which marks FEALAC's 25th anniversary, participants reviewed FEALAC's achievements to date since its launch in 1999 and discussed various ways to further develop FEALAC as an inter-regional multilateral forum. More than 70 people attended the workshop, including from 25 FEALAC member countries, international organizations, academia, and private sector experts.

3. In his opening remarks, Kweon Ki-hwan, Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, congratulated FEALAC's 25th anniversary and appreciated FEALAC's role as a bridge between East Asia and Latin America. In addition, he emphasized that Korea has been playing a leading role in FEALAC by hosting its Cyber Secretariat since 2011 and will continue to contribute to FEALAC's development in the future.

4. This year's workshop featured a special session on advanced technology, in which Dr. Ha Jungwoo, head of Naver Future AI Center, delivered a presentation on "Generative AI Era - Diversity AI, Sovereign AI." Dr. Ha emphasized the importance of sovereign AI that accurately understands the culture and system of each country, and presented various ways to use AI to improve the government's efficiency.

5. The Workshop consisted of two sessions under the themes of "Commemorating 25 years of FEALAC Cooperation - Reflecting on Achievements and Plans for the Future" and "Exploring Smart Partnership in FEALAC - Strategic Collaboration for Mutual Growth in the Era of Advanced Technology." Participants introduced each country's cooperation projects conducted under FEALAC, and discussed various ways to utilize digital technology to facilitate cooperation between the two geographically distant regions.