Santa Fe and Icheon, South Korea, Agree to Cultural and Economic Partnership

The City of Santa Fe, New Mexico and the city of Icheon, South Korea, officially entered into an agreement to foster economic cooperation and cultural exchange on Friday, July 13 at a signing ceremony in the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. A delegation consisting of 17 visitors from South Korea visited Santa Fe and toured cultural events and facilities. The group included Mayor Cho, Byung-don, of the city of Icheon and his wife as well as representatives from the South Korean ceramics industry, cultural affairs organizations and educational institutions.

“Our partnership with Icheon continues to blossom, demonstrating the benefits our UNESCO Creative Cities effort is producing for Santa Fe," said Mayor Pro-Tem Rebecca Wurzburger, who has led the partnership development effort for Santa Fe. "This historic visit from the leaders of Icheon will further enhance our success in establishing exchanges among students, business leaders, artist and other creative industry professionals.  This is a unique opportunity for building business, art and education for Santa Fe all at once.”

As part of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), Santa Fe and Icheon are agreeing to "work in unison for the benefit of their cities and nations’." This includes promoting a variety of exchanges that ‘will contribute to the prosperity and the further development of friendship between the people of our cities." The cities will also pursue establishing a sister-city relationship within the year.

The delegation attended with specific goals for our exchanges as expressed by the Han Youngsoon, principal of Hankook Ceramic Art High School, a world-renowned institution:  "We wish to have exchanges of students for one year, exchanges of a ceramics faculty member who can teach both ceramics and English to our students for up to two years and we want to send members of our faculty here to learn about ceramics techniques in Santa Fe."