President Park Geun-hye exchanged opinions with Hasso Plattner, co-founder of SAP AG, a German software company, about measures to boost cooperation in the software sector and the establishment of a research center in Korea.

Park welcomed the SAP co-founder's visit to Korea on September 3 and said, "SAP’s big data technology capability greatly helped Germany to win the Brazil World Cup."

"Chairman Plattner’s leadership played a crucial role in making the original technology developed at Seoul National University into a world-leading software product. I expect your support so that such cooperation can create more successful cases between the two countries," said the president.

The SAP co-founder said in response that his company has been successfully carrying out business in Korea.

"We hope to strengthen bilateral cooperation by deepening our collaboration not only with companies but also with the government," said Plattner. He explained that the "in-memory database technology" project is one of SAP's technology strengths, while praising the performance of the Korean research team with which the firm worked.

President Park called for SAP to play an active part in the domestic economy so that more Korean software developers and promising venture start-ups would be able to penetrate the international marketplace, combining their innovative products with the German company’s global position in the software industry.

SAP is one of the leading European providers of enterprise software and services. The firm makes software products for companies that help them with database and information management. Its clients include IBM and Microsoft.

On the same day, SAP announced its plan to establish a "Design Thinking Innovation Center" in the Techno Valley in Pangyo, Gyeonggi-do (Gyeonggi Province), in order to incubate software start-ups and innovative entrepreneurs.