The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that South Korea and Japan held the 16th High-Level Economic Consultations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo on the 20th.
The consultations were attended by Kim Heesang, Director-General for Economic Diplomacy Coordination at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Takeshi Akahori, Director-General for Foreign Affairs at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as chief representatives.
Director-General Kim stated, "The government is stably conducting state affairs under the acting presidential system, and we will actively strive to maintain the momentum of friendly cooperative relations between Korea and Japan as well as trilateral cooperation among Korea, the United States, and Japan."
Both sides reviewed global economic trends and the current status of economic cooperation between the two countries, and exchanged broad opinions on issues of interest, including ways to strengthen bilateral and multilateral economic cooperation in various sectors.
In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations next year, both sides discussed cooperation measures in diverse fields such as economic security, energy, taxation and finance, environment and climate change, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, as well as human exchange and tourism, to produce economic outcomes that the citizens of both countries can feel.
They also agreed to expand cooperation in multilateral forums such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Group of Twenty (G20), and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) to promote free trade and strengthen a rules-based economic order.
South Korea requested Japan’s interest and support for the APEC summit to be hosted next year.
Through this consultative body, South Korea and Japan agreed to work together as partners pursuing common interests to ensure that the recent momentum in bilateral relations leads to substantial cooperation in the economic sector and strengthened economic security cooperation.
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