Since the creation of the first Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2016 with Raül Romeva at the helm, Catalan foreign action has focused mainly on Europe and the Mediterranean area. The application of article 155 of the Constitution in October 2017 dismantled almost the entire structure of foreign delegations. Nevertheless, today, with the inauguration of the delegation in Seoul, Minister Meritxell Serret considers that it is the end of a year in which the Government “has relaunched foreign action” to place it “at the first level”.
Pere Aragonès leads the four-day visit to South Korea. Catalonia maintains a lasting relationship with certain regions and Korean companies. Today the president and the councilor will meet the governor of Gyeonggi, the most populated region of the country and with which the Generalitat has maintained contacts since 1999. Gyeonggi is considered an economic and industrial powerhouse of this Asian country. The Catalan delegation intends, in Serret’s words, to redo and at the same time strengthen the bilateral agreement with this region.
The minister also highlighted the appointment she will hold together with Aragonès with Lotte Energy Materials on Thursday. The company acquired Iljin Materials in March 2023 and the investment in Catalonia, according to the Catalan Executive, could reach 1.2 billion euros, which would mean around 500 jobs. Not surprisingly, Lotte plans to build a plant in Mont-roig del Camp to manufacture elecfoil, an essential copper material for lithium batteries for electric vehicles.
In any case, the minister, while addressing the media on the street in Seoul, highlighted the effort of the Generalitat to once again have an extensive network of delegations, with more than twenty covering seventy countries. Serret recalled that the president has been to fifteen countries during his term; the councillor, to 23 on 35 occasions in just fourteen months. Aragonès is scheduled to return to Catalonia on Friday, while Serret will continue his journey and travel to Japan, where the Generalitat is establishing the second foreign delegation in Asia. Its inauguration is planned for the first semester of 2024.
