South Korea wishes to expand ties with Japan in various areas, including chips and batteries, as well as global issues, such as climate change, the finance minister said Tuesday, as the two countries gear up to normalize economic ties after several years of trade tensions.
"Japan and South Korea share common values, such as freedom and human rights," Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho said ahead of his bilateral meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Shunichi Suzuki, on the sidelines of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Incheon, 36 kilometers west of Seoul.
"(As the two countries) take the free trade and market system as the key of their economic management, there are many areas in which the two governments and the private sectors join forces."
The finance minister said it is significant that South Korea and Japan have resumed shuttle diplomacy, or regular visits to each other's countries by their leaders. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was the first South Korean president in 12 years to make a bilateral visit to Japan in March.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will make a two-day visit to South Korea next week, according to Japanese media reports.
Choo added South Korea and Japan should bolster partnerships in areas that can create shared interests, such as industries including chips and batteries, along with emerging areas, including space and biotechnology.
The two countries should also expand ties to address issues such as low births and climate change, he added.
South Korea and Japan recently have been making efforts to revitalize their bilateral exchanges, after the two countries agreed to reinstate each other to their respective "white list" of trusted trading partners.
In 2019, South Korea took Japan off its white list following Tokyo's removal of Seoul from its own list in apparent retaliation against the South Korean Supreme Court rulings the previous year that ordered two Japanese companies to pay compensation to Korean forced labor victims during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
In yet another sign of a slow thaw in bilateral ties, Japan invited South Korea to take part in the upcoming G-7 ministerial meeting that will kick off in Tokyo on May 11.
It marked South Korea's first invitation to the G-7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' Meeting since 2008.
Source: Yonhap News Agency