The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency and the Korea Gas Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with the Inter-America Development Bank to better access natural gas abundant in the Latin American region, Luis Albert Moreno, president of IDB said Thursday in Seoul.

“Korea Gas Corp. probably is the largest importer of natural gas in the world. The idea is to use this existing mechanism to look for more opportunities to cooperate between Korea and Latin America,” the head of the world’s largest regional development lender said in a news conference on the sidelines of a business forum hosted by the Finance Ministry.

The Korea-LAC Trade & Investment Forum gathered hundreds of policymakers, executives of energy and IT companies, and investors in both regions to foster a debate about how to expand economic cooperation between the two.

“We hope to syndicate a loan with the Export-Import Bank of Korea to facilitate business expansion in both regions,” Moreno said.

Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan said Korea’s economic ties with Latin America will expand, inevitably so as the regions take big ever bigger share of the world economy.

“Korea and Latin America has mutual interests to become strategic partners. Korea has a high demand for natural resources and agricultural goods abundant in Latin America, and our manufactured goods are wanted over there,” Bahk said in his keynote speech.

More than 100 Korean companies including Samsung SDS, LG CNS, LS Cable, SK Energy, and POSCO Engineering joined the day-long matchmaking sessions with executives from energy and IT companies in Latin America.

IDB has been pointing out that Korea’s share of trade in Latin America remains fairly small despite Asia and Latin America regions being “the two growth pillars of the world.”

Korea’s share of trade with Latin America has risen little since the 1990s, from a little over 1 percent to 2.5 percent in 2010.

IDB, in a new study released Wednesday, argued that companies in Latin America and the Caribbean should turn their attention to Korea for its fast growing economy.

By Cynthia J. Kim (cynthiak@heraldcorp.com)