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Philly Koreans call for Korean consulate in city

July 23, 2015

By The Korea Times Los Angeles staff

Will Philadelphia get its own Korean consulate?

Requests from the local Korean American community for the installation of a South Korean consulate in the city resulted in a meeting with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials last Friday.

Chung Kang, chief of the Overseas Koreans and Consular Affairs Bureau, and Choi Eun-kyung, a ministry official, arrived in Philadelphia last week to hold discussions with Chang Kwon-il, head of the bidding committee for a new consulate, and City Councilman David Oh.

“The documents we received through the New York consulate about a Philadelphia consulate are being looked over by the ministry,” Chung said. “We learned a lot by coming here to Philadelphia ourselves.”

Chung said the ministry has a goal of expanding the number of Korean overseas diplomatic spaces by two each year.

Currently, there are nine Korean consulates in the country, in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Houston, New York, San Francisco and Seattle, and an embassy in Washington, D.C.