South Korea and Singapore have upgraded their bilateral relationship to a strategic partnership and agreed to strengthen cooperation in a number of areas.  

President Lee Jae Myung and Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced the upgrade in a joint press conference on Sunday, following summit talks at the Yongsan presidential office in Seoul.

Under their newly established strategic partnership, the two sides agreed to respond jointly to the evolving economic and security environment, enhance collaboration in advanced technologies, and expand people-to-people exchanges.

In the security sector, the leaders pledged to expand joint research on defense technology, and to strengthen policy coordination and law enforcement collaboration to combat transnational crimes such as online scams.

On economic cooperation, the two leaders agreed to promote trade and investment between South Korea and Singapore based on the bilateral free trade agreement and through improvements to the trade pact between South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Meanwhile, the two nations also signed several memorandums of understanding, including one on joint research on artificial intelligence.