The governments of South Korea and Uzbekistan are gearing up for bilateral economic cooperation as part of efforts to counter the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Seoul’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, Sung Yun-mo, met on Monday with Sardor Umurzakov, Uzbekistan's deputy prime minister for investment and foreign economic relations. 

Umurzakov is the first cabinet member of a foreign state to visit South Korea since the coronavirus outbreak. 

During the meeting, the two sides agreed that their mutual trust has deepened through cooperation amid the pandemic, including medical experts and diagnostic kits provided by Seoul and a waiver of entry restrictions on South Korean businesspeople offered by Tashkent. 

They also checked the progresses of 57 joint projects proposed by Uzbekistan during telephone talks in April between President Moon Jae-in and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Sung and Umurzakov also vowed to expand bilateral industrial cooperation beyond automobiles, fabric and agricultural machinery and launch new cooperative projects  in the medical and digital arenas.