South Korea and China have agreed to discuss ways to expand service trade based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed during the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. They also decided to hold a joint committee on the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to seek ways to enhance FTA implementation and continue communication for the smooth introduction of key supply chain items such as rare earth elements.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that Minister Kim Jeong-gwan visited Beijing, China, for two days from the 11th to the 12th and held a Korea-China trade ministers’ meeting with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao. This meeting is the first solo visit to China for a trade ministers’ meeting in seven years since June 2018, and it comes about a month after the trade ministers’ meeting held in Gyeongju during the APEC summit.
During the meeting, the two countries discussed economic and trade cooperation measures, including follow-up actions to the agreements made during the Korea-China summit when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited South Korea as a state guest. They agreed to strengthen cooperation to expand trade and promote mutual investment, which has been stagnant since reaching a record high of $310.4 billion in 2022. They also decided to have frequent ministerial communications using bilateral and multilateral opportunities to discuss economic and trade cooperation.
The two sides agreed on the need to actively promote local economic revitalization cooperation to address the common challenge of local economic stagnation. To this end, South Korea will continue cooperation through exchange channels with Chinese local governments and expand cooperation from coastal areas to central and inland regions. They also discussed ways to revitalize investment cooperation based on the Korea-China industrial cooperation complex through channels such as the vice-ministerial-level Korea-China industrial complex council.