[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo In-ho] Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha emphasized the need to strengthen multilateral cooperation to overcome the COVID-19 crisis at the World Economic Forum (WEF).
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 30th, Minister Kang participated as a panelist in the WEF's "Davos Agenda Week High-Level Meeting," held via video conference the previous afternoon, stating, "We must refrain from vaccine nationalism seen in several countries recently and work multilaterally to support the universal and equitable distribution of vaccines and therapeutics."
Minister Kang highly praised the role of the 'COVAX facility' in vaccine distribution. COVAX is an international project led by the World Health Organization (WHO) for joint vaccine procurement and allocation.
As measures to address current issues, Minister Kang proposed ▲ strengthening the international health system centered on the World Health Organization (WHO) ▲ actively responding to fake news ▲ expanding participation of private stakeholders ▲ restoring multilateralism.
The discussion was held under the theme of "Geopolitical Transition." Participants included Taro Kono, Japan's Minister for Administrative Reform, Fu Ying, former Vice Foreign Minister of China and Director of the Strategic Security Research Center at Tsinghua University, Retno Marsudi, Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The attendees emphasized the need to overcome the common crisis regarding the recently intensified U.S.-China relations and, considering the highly interdependent reality of complex economic relations, stressed the necessity to actively identify areas that bring mutual benefits and cooperate accordingly.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that there was a consensus on the need for international leaders to jointly establish vaccine strategies to realize "vaccine multilateralism," and to support financial aid, health infrastructure expansion, and regulatory and institutional backing for developing countries.
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