1. Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs Lee Seong-ho attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Senior Officials’Meeting (SOM) held in a virtual format from June 1 (Tue) to 3 (Thur). Deputy Minister Lee and other partners from the member economies discussed the COVID-19 response, economic recovery measures, and ways to enhance cooperation in serving this year’s APEC activities, including establishing an implementation plan for the 「Putrajaya Vision 2040」.

2. At this meeting, the member economies agreed on the need to bring their economy back on track from COVID-19 and create an open and predictable trade environment, and discussed ways to achieve free trade and investment, accelerate the digital economy, and ensure inclusive and sustainable growth.

ㅇ The member economies discussed necessity to increase transparency and deregulate trade restrictive measures for strengthening supply chain system, agreed on strengthening the role of trade to facilitate distribution and production of COVID-19 vaccines, and shared views on measures to foster fair competition for vulnerable groups such as women and small-sized enterprises.

ㅇ Moreover, the member economies shared the need to pursue qualitative recovery accompanied by structural reforms like transformation to digital economy as well as green recovery.

3. They also agreed that the implementation plan for the 「Putrajaya Vision 2040」 includes measurable objectives and regular reviews to keep monitoring the attainment of objectives, and decided to accelerate the process to draft the implementation plan so that the process can be completed within this year.

4. Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs Lee Seong-ho proposed concrete cooperative measures to strengthen supply chains and competitiveness in the service sectors, to accelerate structure reform and to facilitate the digital economy in the Asia-Pacific region. He also mentioned that Korea would continue to conduct various projects to contribute to economic growth within the region.

ㅇ He shared the progress made in the study on resuming essential movement of people for business purposes which was initiated by Korea. He also expressed Korea’s willingness to contribute to developing the new Food Security Roadmap which includes measures to stabilize hard-hit food supply chain.

ㅇ Deputy Minister Lee stressed the need to dutifully execute the agreed cooperative measures to strengthen competitiveness in the service sectors, and expressed Korea’s willingness to contribute to liberalizing the environmental service sector which has showed slow progress.

ㅇ He also explained the Korean government’s Green New Deal policy, Digital New Deal policy, and policy for strengthening social safety net aimed at increasing jobs and domestic demand.

- In particular, he explained that Korea hosted the P4G summit (May 30-31) to join the international efforts to promote climate actions and inclusive green recovery.

ㅇ At the meeting, Korea reaffirmed its status as a leading country in digitalization by introducing various engagements especially in areas of promoting consumer protection and contributing to developing economies’ capacity building on e-commerce negotiation.

5. This SOM served as an opportunity to discuss concrete measures to enhance cooperation in promoting the economic recovery and development of the Asia-Pacific region, and to agree on proceeding with APEC activities in due course including finalization of the implementation plan for the 「Putrajaya Vision 2040」. These efforts provided renewed momentum for cooperation in the region to overcome the COVID-19 crisis and to get prepared for the post-COVID-19 era.

ㅇ The Korean government will continuously engage in cooperation in the region at Senior Officials’ Meetings and Ministers’ Meetings for coming up with feasible outcomes at the ALEM (APEC Leaders’ Economic Meeting) which will be held this November.