The mayor of South Korea's largest city visited Switzerland, where he inked a pact to more closely link up to the alpine nation's burgeoning blockchain technology hub.
Park Won-Soon, mayor of Seoul, signed a memorandum of understanding with Zurich officials on Wednesday. The politician in South Korea's largest city is on a ten-day stint through Europe with a 30-person delegation visiting Spain, Switzerland, and Estonia.
South Korea is emerging as a hub for the technology, despite central government doubts about cryptocurrencies. The country is «crypto crazy,» accounting for as much as 30 percent of global trading in digital currencies.
The local government of Zurich wants to open doors for South Korea, especially in e-government, science, technology, culture, and tourism.
«S Coin» Token
Park, who has long been a vocal advocate of blockchain technology for administration and public services, visited Trust Square, a booster project providing office space in Zurich's banking district to blockchain-based start-ups.
Park told finews.asia that Switzerland's «favorable business atmosphere and structure» for businesses to set up, and the ecosystem of the blockchain economy had impressed him most. He also visited crypto valley in Zug, but didn't meet with any officials from the Swiss government.
Seoul's efforts in blockchain will focus on providing social services to citizens, as opposed to allocating local government resources to start-ups, as Zurich has. Earlier this year, Seoul said it would launch «S Coin,» which aims to be a method of payment by recipients of the city's social services.
