S. Korean officials visit LI trade zone

A delegation of South Korean officials visited a foreign trade zone near Long Island MacArthur Airport on Sunday, met with local leaders and talked business.

The meeting comes after President Barack Obama signed into law free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea earlier this month.

While no deals were struck, the visit afforded both sides a chance to learn and network, said Islip Town Supervisor Phil Nolan, who serves as the local trade zone chairman.

"We just want the delegation to actually see what we have here, the proximity to the airport, the road system," he said. "We hope that in the future this will engender thoughts of doing something cooperative with us."

Other local officials on hand included Suffolk County Economic Development and Workforce Housing Commissioner Yves Michel, trade zone executive director Astrid Fidelia, airport commissioner Teresa Rizzuto and Scott Martella, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's Suffolk representative.

The Korean delegation is visiting New York to promote the Saemangeum Gunsan Free Economic Zone, which sits on the site of a massive land-reclamation project on the Yellow Sea. The delegation expressed an interest in visiting the nearby trade zone, said deputy director Katherine Klahn, and local officials invited them.

Hyon Wook Kang, co-chairman of the Saemangeum Development Committee, told local leaders through an interpreter that the land-reclamation project in his home country is five times the size of Manhattan.

Kang said he hoped local leaders could introduce his economic zone to investors, just as he would spread word about what their trade zone offers "so that we can forge a win-win relationship."

"I hope that we can find a way to cooperate with each other," he said.Fidelia outlined for the visitors the benefits of doing business at Foreign Trade Zone 52, as the 52-acre site is officially known. (It was the 52nd trade zone in the country, according to Klahn, and it's acreage figure is just a coincidence.) The zone is considered outside U.S. Customs territory and standard import duties don't apply. Also, the town extends property-tax relief to businesses there.

After the presentation, Kang presented Nolan with a bolo tie that featured an image of a turtle, considered a symbol of longevity. Nolan, noting that he'd lost a step over the last 30 years, joked that the turtle really represented his "slowness on the basketball court."