South Korean President Moon Jae-in was set to hold meetings with Kazakhstan's incumbent and former leaders Monday to discuss ways to improve the countries' bilateral ties and boost economic cooperation, Trend reports citing Yonhap.
Moon will first hold a summit with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, marking his first meeting with a Kazakh head of state since he took office in May 2017. It will also come about a month after the new Kazakh leader took office late last month.
The summit will follow a welcome ceremony to be hosted by President Tokayev.
The South Korean president is on a three-day state visit that began Sunday in Almaty, the largest city of Kazakhstan. He arrived in the country's capital, formerly called Astana, later in the day.
Moon will later hold a meeting with Kazakhstan's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is said to still hold a significant amount of political influence in the Central Asian country despite his resignation last month.
Kazakhstan is South Korea's largest trade partner in Central Asia, with their bilateral trade reaching US$2.2 billion last year.
Moon seeks to further expand his country's trade and economic cooperation with Kazakhstan and other countries in the region under his New Northern Policy, which aims to build a network of cooperation with countries north of South Korea and those in Eurasia, such as Russia.
The South Korean president is on a three-nation tour that earlier took him to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
He will return home Tuesday, wrapping up his eight-day tour that began last Tuesday.