South Korea is targeting to increase its bilateral trade with Malaysia to RM100 billion in the next five years.

Its ambassador to Malaysia, Yang Bong Ryull, said South Korea is the sixth largest trading partner and the eighth largest investor to Malaysia.

"In the next five years, the bilateral trade volume between Malaysia and Korea will increase to RM100 billion if the growth pace continues," he told reporters after launching the "Korea, Closer Than You Imagine" programme here Thursday.

Yang said for the past 10 years, the bilateral trade volume has been expanding by over 10 percent annually on average and it exceeded RM50 billion last year.

He said joint ventures and strategic alliances between the two countries were diversifying from manufacturing to more value-added technologically advanced sectors such as information and communications technology, oil and gas, finance, and tourism.

He also said that governments and private sectors from both countries were currently discussing to develop a biomass technology for sustainable and renewable energy but he declined for elaborate on the discussions.

Earlier in his speech, Yang said for the past few years, South Korea and the Association of South East Asia Nations (Asean) have signed free trade agreements on goods and services.

He said the Asean-South Korea trade volume will increase from US$90 billion last year to US$150 billon by 2015.

Yang said in order to facilitate the cooperation in the region, South Korea has established the Asean-Korea Centre to provides business information as well as cultural information on every country in the region.

People-to-people exchange between the two countries has also been increasing steadily, he said.

"More than 260,000 Koreans visited Malaysia last year for leisure, business and education and Malaysian visits to Korea exceeded 80,000," he added.

Deputy Foreign Minister Senator Kohilan Pillay, who was present at the event, said Malaysia has benefited from the Look East policy with more than 2,700 Malaysians having received training in industrial and technical fields from Korea since the policy was introduced in 1983.

"Until last month, more than 3,800 Malaysian are currently studying in Korea in various fields and Malaysia has established a Malay study chair at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul in April last year", he said in his speech.

The "Korea, Closer Than You Imagine" programme is organised in conjunction with the Asean-Korea Commemorative Summit which will be held in Jeju Island, South Korea, on June 1 and 2.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is expected to join other Asean leaders at the summit which will dicuss future directions and strengthen cooperative partnerships between Korea and Asean.

-- BERNAMA