The readout is the presidential office's, posted on Wednesday by its senior secretary for public relations and communication. The declaration sets out 4 visions: institutionalising the partnership; peace and stability; innovation and prosperity; connection through people and trust. Alongside it the sides signed a Korea-Central Asia industrial and supply-chain cooperation memorandum, created an industrial ministers' consultative body to run it, and adopted 2 initiatives, one on AI, science and technology, one on climate, energy and environment. Lee Jae-myung said he expected to meet again in Kazakhstan in 2 years.
Between summits the mechanics are in the declaration's text as newspim and the Kyrgyz presidential press service relay it: a foreign ministers' cooperation forum reviews implementation in the off years, the creation of a vice-ministerial senior officials' meeting is welcomed, and each Central Asian state sets up a Korea Desk in its government structures to help Korean companies on its market. Kazakhstan proposed Astana for 2028 and the other four supported it. The format has had a permanent secretariat since 2017, the readout notes. What is new is the summit.
The declaration's products are a calendar and a desk.
Paper came from the business summit at the Westin Chosun: 19 business memoranda in critical minerals, smart cities, plants and digital, signed at a ceremony before the business summit, by the office's count. It names 2, Hyundai Motor's smart-city memorandum for Alatau and the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology's rare-metals memorandum with what the office renders as Kazakhstan's national institute of metallurgy and ore. KOTRA's matchmaking beside it brought 33 Central Asian buyers to about 90 Korean firms, with contracts signed on the spot, $3 million between Artbox and Casia Imports among them. About 520 people attended, about 350 of them businesspeople from the region, Samruk-Kazyna and KazMunayGas among the delegations.
Each pitch was bilateral. Tokayev, in Tengrinews's account of his speech: about $19 billion of commercial agreements signed during the visit, Central Asia's trade with Korea above $10 billion last year for the first time, the KIA Qazaqstan plant with a capacity of 70,000 cars a year as the model to copy in other industries, and a rail and logistics chain from Korea through Central Asia to Europe. Berdimuhamedov, in the speech Ashgabat's state site stamped 23:30 on Tuesday night and modified on Wednesday afternoon: 17 investment projects with Korean companies registered in Turkmenistan, worth over $12 billion; LX International and Hyundai Engineering on a gas-desulphurisation plant at Galkynysh and a polymer plant at Kiyanly; SK networks on road-safety systems in Ashgabat. Japarov, by his press service via 24.kg: Kambar-Ata-1, the Ala-Too Resort and logistics centres along the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, with 10 documents signed at the business summit, their content and investment sums undisclosed in the press service's statement, and a proposal for an investment fund within the Central Asia-Korea format. Rahmon, in Asia-Plus's account of the economic forum: more than 240 kinds of guarantees and benefits for investors, over 110 of them tax and customs preferences.
Two counts sit beside each other on Tajikistan's documents. Asia-Plus lists 15 signed with Korea on Wednesday morning, from customs cooperation to an energy memorandum with KEPCO and a railway memorandum between the transport ministries; the Seoul Economic Daily's count of the same talks was 17. Mirziyoyev's own lines from the session had not appeared on UzDaily's front, which carried 11 items on Wednesday, by 16:45 Tashkent time.
The declaration's products are a calendar and a desk. That calendar binds Seoul to the region on a 2-year cycle it did not have, with a foreign ministers' review in the off years and a ministers' body for industry. A desk inside each state's own administration is where a Korean company's problems will now sit, which is the clause a Korean investor will read first. Money stays bilateral and mostly memorandum: the $19 billion is Tokayev's sum of commercial agreements, with no contract or financing date attached to it on the record, and the readout of the session has no figure at all. What to watch: the first industrial ministers' meeting and its date; the legal form the Korea Desks take in five administrations; which of Astana's $19 billion reaches a contract with a financing date; and whether the value-chain clause, processing in Central Asia with Korean technology, gets a first plant named.