Press Releases

JICA (President Sadako Ogata) and the Economic Development Cooperation Fund of the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM-EDCF) held a regular consultative meeting in Tokyo on 1st and 2nd December to further strengthen the collaboration between the two institutions. The meeting was held immediately after the decision, which the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) made on South Korea’s accession to the DAC in Paris on 25th November 2009.

The consultative meeting provided a venue for both institutions to introduce each other their current operations and policies on those issues including countermeasures to climate change and assistance for Africa. Both of them situate these as priority areas, and they discussed the possibility of collaboration in the actual operations and shared information on their overall operational strategies. They also exchanged views on how the KEXIM-EDCF could be involved in the Infrastructure Recovery and Assets (INFRA) Platform (a framework for donor collaboration for infrastructure investments in developing countries), one of the World Bank-initiated crisis response operations, to which JICA has actively participated.

The government of South Korea became a member of the OECD in 1996 and has expanded its Official Development Assistance (ODA) operations in order to carry out its duty in the international community as one of the advanced countries. The KEXIM-EDCF is a group established within the Export-Import Bank of Korea in 1987 in order to implement Korea’s bilateral ODA loan operations.

Since the establishment of the KEXIM-EDCF in 1987, JICA has at every occasion shared its knowledge of ODA operations, which realised significant results in Asia, as a reference to the KEXIM-EDCF . In addition, in order to build comprehensive and strategic cooperation and partnership relations, KEXIM-EDCF and JICA executed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in October 2006, and have engaged in regular consultative meetings since then. The official decision on South Korea’s accession to the DAC was realized through these JICA’s cooperation .

While JICA has focused on assistance for institutional capacity building of the KEXIM-EDCF so far, from now on, JICA will share and discuss policies and strategies in mutual priority areas with a view to realising and promoting tangible collaboration in actual operations, in light of South Korea’s commencement of full-fledged donor activities as a DAC member country.

In the Asian region, there is a growing tendency for countries such as South Korea, as well as China, Thailand, and Malaysia to actively assist other developing countries. JICA will proactively establish and deepen partnership relations with the economic development agencies of these countries.