A DOUBLE TAXATION Agreement (DTA) with South Korea was a key talking point recently when Ambassador-Designate of the Republic of Korea to Barbados, Doo-Young Lee paid a courtesy call on Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Maxine McClean, at her Culloden Road Office.
Acknowledging the excellent working relations between the two countries, in particular Korea’s support for training, Minister McClean said: “We have been working to keep it that way. We obviously depend on our bilateral trading partners to cooperate with us.”
Stating that the Government of Barbados was looking to negotiate a DTA with South Korea, she noted that the island was still awaiting a response from that country regarding whether the negotiation of a Tax Information Exchange Agreement was necessary given that Barbados intended to sign the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, to which South Korea was already a party.
“…You are party to that Convention and therefore we would need to determine if we sign that Convention if that should substitute having to negotiate a separate tax information agreement. Because, I think if we are both parties to that Convention then that perhaps suffices. But if it isn’t, then we would want to know so that we can take whatever action to do the necessary to follow through,” said Senator McClean.
Ambassador Doo-Young Lee gave the assurance that his country was committed to discussing this, as well as other areas of cooperation such as film and arts, sports, computer science, language training and cultural exchanges.
“I think cultural exchanges are very important especially when you note that Korea has produced wonderful movies,” he said, pointing out that Korea intended to have a Movie Festival here in December.
While encouraging the Minister and a delegation to visit his country for the 5th High-Level Forum on Korea-Caribbean Partnership in October of this year, he urged Barbados’ support of South Korea’s candidature of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assuring her that he would work to support developing countries.
The two also discussed shared interests in issues of climate change and developing green economies as well as the pairing of students to build culturally in the area of information technology in schools. “I trust we can strengthen our ties and you will find your tour of duty interesting,” said Minister McClean to the Ambassador who will reside in Trinidad and Tobago. (BGIS)
