The ASEAN Korea Center promoted people-to-people ties between South Korea and Southeast Asia with a youth workshop here and trip to Vietnam for Korean youths selected from among the participants.

The “ASEAN-Korea Youth Workshop” brought together 80 young people residing here from Southeast Asian and Korean students studying at universities around the country with the aim of fostering mutual understanding and friendship by creating a venue to discuss issues of common concern.

The one-week workshop at Olympic Parktel in Seoul featured lectures, discussions and friendship-building activities.

One area of particular concern was “sustainable water resource management,” by virtue of the fact that many of the Southeast Asian students came from predominantly rural communities in their home countries.

“Countermeasures against natural disasters and water resource management have gained importance in the face of climate change,” said an official from the ASEAN-Korea Center.

Thirty participants at the workshop were selected to visit Vietnam from Aug. 19-23 in order to better appreciate Vietnamese challenges with water resource management, as well as Vietnamese culture and traditions.

The highlight of the trip was a student exchange program at Da Nang University of Economics, in Danang, one of the country’s major port cities off the South China Sea.

ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has emerged as an important investment and trade partner for South Korea. The group of 10 Southeast Asian member states is now South Korea’s second-largest trade partner and third-largest investment destination. Southeast Asian residents here number in the hundreds of thousands and play a crucial part in South Korea’s drive to become a multicultural country.

By Philip Iglauer (ephilip2014@heraldcorp.com)