ROKG LIKELY TO OFFER SOFT LOAN AT PAKISTAN DONORS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 000570 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2019 TAGS: PREL EAID ECON EFIN KS PK SUBJECT: ROKG LIKELY TO OFFER SOFT LOAN AT PAKISTAN DONORS CONFERENCE REF: STATE 32712 Classified By: POLMC Joseph Yun for reasons 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (C) POLMC on April 8 delivered reftel demarche to Choi Jongmoon, Director-General for South Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Choi said that he expected the ROKG to make a pledge at the conference because Pakistan, like the ROK, is an Asian country so the ROKG must do something to help, and that the ROKG, as an USG ally, understood the importance of Pakistan to the USG. After saying he expected the ROKG to determine a final monetary figure at the last moment, Choi said that the ROKG's pledge at the conference would probably be a USD 160 million soft loan package for infrastructure projects, for which the ROKG already had an umbrella agreement with Pakistan, plus "something else" not yet determined. Choi said that the ROKG had not yet worked out the details of the soft loan package. Choi will attend the donors' conference with Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan. ¶2. (C) Separately, an officer from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul told poloff the same day that it received the same response from the ROKG, and that the ROKG would also include a small unspecified amount of grant aid, which presumably is what DG Choi referred to as "something else" in our meeting. STEPHENS