South Korean Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho will head to Japan later this week to take part in the Group of Seven (G-7) meeting of financial ministers following Tokyo's invitation, his office said Wednesday.
Choo will depart for Japan on Thursday to participate in the three-day G-7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' Meeting, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
It marks South Korea's first participation in the gathering since 2008. Other non-member countries invited to the meeting are India, Brazil, Indonesia, Comoros and Singapore.
The finance minister plans to share his opinion on key global economic issues with participating nations. Choo is also set to hold a bilateral meeting with his Italian counterpart, Giancarlo Giorgetti.
Japan's invitation of South Korea came amid the two countries' recent efforts to normalize their economic ties.
The bilateral relationship soured in 2019 as Japan imposed export curbs against South Korea in retaliation against the 2018 South Korean Supreme Court rulings ordering Japanese firms to compensate South Korean victims of forced labor during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Relations between South Korea and Japan began to thaw this year after President Yoon Suk Yeol offered to resolve the forced labor issue by compensating victims on South Korea's own without asking for contributions from Japan.
Seoul also put Japan back on its "whitelist" of trusted trading partners in late April. Tokyo also announced that it has launched procedures to reinstate South Korea on its own list.
Yoon and Japaneses Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in Seoul on Sunday, the second of its kind in less than two months, and marked the resumption of "shuttle diplomacy" between the countries' leaders after a 12-year hiatus.
Source: Yonhap News Agency