South Korea’s ambassador to Denmark Ma Young-sam 마영삼 was in Greenland last week in an official visit, during which he met with government ministers charged with foreign affairs, industry and natural resources, as well as with representatives from seafood producer Royal Greenland. There was talk of increasing cooperation in mining and fisheries (Sermitsiaq).

A more urgent concern than such future prospects is surely Korean state-owned miner KORES’ investment in the Qeqertaasaq REE+Nb project. KORES has been exploring at the site in partnership with Greenland’s state-owned NunaMinerals, a company in rather serious financial trouble that filed for bankruptcy. Talking to Greenlandic public broadcaster KNR, Ma said the Koreans are keeping a “close eye” on their country’s first investment in Greenland, since “many other Korean companies want to invest big in Greenland”.

Soon after Ma’s visit, news emerged that NunaMinerals are withdrawing their bankruptcy petition based on optimism about ongoing restructuring talks with Greenland Mining Management (GMM), a new-ish UK company seemingly wholly owned by Patrick Newman, a businessman who has been involved in a number of mining companies with interests in Greenland and elsewhere. GMM are proposing to invest in Nuna with an eye to the latter then making an offer for investment group Worthington, suspended from trading in London in Oct ’14 after an ambitious investment plan attracted regulatory attention as amounting to a reverse takeover. Worthington’s shopping spree included a stake in Greenland Rare Earth Projects (GREP), also led by Mr Newman, who hold an exploration license for the REE+Nb+Ta+U Paatusoq project in southeast Greenland.

South Korean interest in Greenland was displayed rather spectacularly in 2012, when then-president Lee Myung-Bak visited the island. The KORES-Nuna Qeqertaasaq exploration agreement goes back to Lee’s visit.

Ambassador Ma’s visit to Greenland appears to have gone unnoticed by the South Korean press, but Korean attention on the fate of KORES Greenlandic investment has been evidenced by news items on the website of the ministry of foreign affairs and other sources, as I reported a couple of weeks ago.

More attention has been dispensed to Mr Ma’s parallel career as an international ping-pong referee, in which capacity he took part in the ping pong championship in Suzhou, China, some ten days before heading to Greenland. An Chosun article compares him to Bao Zheng 包拯, a Song dynasty judge with a semi-legendary reputation for impartiality and the subject of a number of Chinese TV series that have enjoyed some popularity in South Korea. Ma Young-sam’s diplomatic career began in the Middle East.