1. Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang, Kyung-wha had a multilateral teleconference with her counterparts of major countries for about 1 hour from 20:00, June 3 (Korea Standard Time), and discussed ways for international cooperation on COVID-19 response.

o The teleconference, which marked the second since the first one on May 11, brought together the foreign ministers of the Republic of Korea, the United States of America, which proposed the teleconference, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic of India, and the State of Israel.

2. The foreign ministers shared the view that close communication and collaboration among countries are important to achieve the two goals of preventing the spread of COVID-19 and bringing economies and societies back on track at the same time amid the prolonged global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. They discussed facilitating international travel, collaborating on response to the pandemic, sharing information swiftly and transparently, and promoting international cooperation for economic recovery.

3. Minister Kang explained that the ROK has endeavored to effectively control the virus while keeping borders open, based on the principles of openness, transparency, and civic engagement in the course of responding to the virus. She further explained that the ROK has exerted diplomatic efforts to enable essential travel for business or humanitarian purposes to proceed even under travel restriction by many countries, and suggested continuing cooperation among countries to maintain such openness.

o Furthermore, Minister Kang expressed hope that productive discussions will be held in a timely manner based on the results of an evaluation on the WHO-coordinated international health response to COVID-19, to be conducted in accordance with the resolution adopted at the World Health Assembly (May 18-19). She said that the ROK will contribute constructively to the international community’s discussions on improving the global health governance on the basis of the lessons learned from its response to COVID-19 in the early stages.

o In addition, Minister Kang explained that in an effort to recover from the economic contraction caused by the prolonged COVID-19 situation, the ROK has been taking measures to boost domestic demand, including offering emergency disaster relief fund. She also hoped to continue to share each country’s economic and fiscal policy experiences in the course of responding to the pandemic.

4. The foreign ministers noted with appreciation that they had candid and productive discussions on COVID-19 response, as they had done in the last meeting, and agreed to continue close communication and collaboration.