Korea and Cambodia established diplomatic relations in 1970, and those ties were severed in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge regime took power. It was not until more than 20 years later, in 1997, that the two countries resumed diplomatic ties following the opening of a representative office of the Republic of Korea in Phnom Penh in 1996.

The normalization of diplomatic relations has ushered in a period of remarkable growth in their bilateral ties across the full range of political, economic, development and cultural cooperation. The three official visits by Korean presidents and six official visits by the Cambodian prime minister are some of the highlights of this period.

In particular, President Moon Jae-in made a state visit to Cambodia in March 2019 and Korea hosted the third ASEAN-Republic of Korea Commemorative Summit and the first ever Mekong-Republic of Korea Summit in November 2019. In return, Prime Minister Hun Sen paid a visit to Korea in February 2020.

The Republic of Korea has provided Cambodia, one of its major partner countries for development cooperation, with 700 million US dollars of official development assistance (ODA). Korea's development cooperation is expected to expand further as Cambodia is the priority development cooperation partner.

More than 200 Korean companies have also been actively involved in various business activities in Cambodia. Two-way trade has increased twentyfold since the two countries re-established diplomatic ties in 1997, reaching 1 billion US dollars in 2019. Korea is also the second largest foreign direct investor in Cambodia, with a cumulative total of 5.8 billion US dollars in investment.

The Cambodian government highly values Korea's leading role in such areas as direct investment, tourism, cultural exchange, development cooperation, vocational training, IT, construction, finance and airline business, all of which contribute to Cambodia's development process. The Embassy is committed to building on these robust exchanges and cooperation to take their bilateral relationship to a higher level. The Embassy is also working hard to provide timely and friendly consular services to their visitors and Korean communities in Cambodia.