South Korea to resume Finance Ministers’ meeting with Japan

SEOUL: South Korea and Japan agreed to resume their long-stalled Finance Ministers' meeting "at an appropriate time this year" as the two countries gear up to normalise economic ties after several years of trade tensions.

Officials from Japan will visit South Korea next month to work out details of the meeting, Yonhap News Agency reported on Tuesday citing the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

The agreement was reached during a meeting between South Korean Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho and 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.

"Japan and South Korea share common values, such as freedom and human rights," Choo said ahead of the meeting.

"(As the two countries) consider the free trade and market system to be the key of their economic management, there are many areas in which the two governments and the private sectors can 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.

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 on May 7, according to Japanese media reports.

Seoul and Tokyo also agreed to make joint efforts to address international and regional issues, and vowed to expand cooperation in global platforms, such as the Group of 20 and the ASEAN+3.

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 labour 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 G7 ministerial meeting that will kick off in Tokyo on May 11.

It marked South Korea's first invitation to the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' Meeting since 2008.