Korean Flour Millers Visit Montana

HELENA, Mont. — A group of South Korean flour mill executives will visit
Montana as part of a tour to conduct business and to strengthen ties with
U.S. wheat producers.

Four high-level members of the Korean Flour Mills Industrial Association
(KOFMIA) are expected to arrive in Great Falls the evening of April 29 and
leave the state May 1 for meetings in Washington, DC. While here, the
delegation will meet with wheat industry representatives. On April 30, 2003,
Governor Judy Martz will host the group for lunch and hold a joint press
conference in Helena the same afternoon.

"South Korea ranks third among international customers for Montana’s
high-protein wheat, and our trading relationship dates back many years. We
welcome this opportunity to become better acquainted and to learn more about
their milling industry and the wheat characteristics they desire," Governor
Martz said of the visit.

Members of KOFMIA will arrive in Portland, Oregon, on April 27 and split
into two groups to visit Oregon, Montana and North Dakota before reuniting
in Washington, DC for meetings on May 1 with national and congressional
leaders. U.S. Wheat Associates and the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee
announced the meetings.

While in the United States, the delegation is expected to announce the
purchase of 200,000 metric tons of U.S. wheat, and to express Korea’s
support for the United States-led coalition’s policy in Iraq.

The two countries have had a long trading relationship. In fiscal year 2002,
U.S. companies sold 1.3 million metric tons of wheat to South Korea, or 55
percent of the country’s total wheat imports. The United States helped
rebuild Korean flour mills destroyed in the Korean War, and first shipped
wheat to South Korea in 1956 under the Food for Peace program.

The four-member KOFMIA delegation will be accompanied to Montana by Won Bang
Koh, U.S. Wheat Associates country director, who has worked in Seoul for 11
years on behalf of American wheat producers, according to Jim Christianson,
executive vice president of the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee.

For more information about the visit, contact the Montana Wheat and Barley
Committee at (406) 761-7732, or by email at [email protected].

Contact: Matt McKamey
(406) 444-2402
TTY: (406) 444-4687