S.Korea, Japan to resume finance ministers' meeting

South Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance announced on Friday that Kim Seong-wook, the ministry's Director of the Office of International Finance and Office of International Economic Management, held a vice-ministerial meeting with Masato Kanda, the Japanese Vice-Minister of Finance for International Affairs, at the Government Complex in Seoul, and discussed this issue.

The two countries have agreed to hold the 8th Korea-Japan Finance Ministers' Meeting in Tokyo on June 29.

The two countries will discuss economic trends, follow-up measures from the G7 Finance Ministers' Meeting and cooperation at the G20 Finance Ministers' Meeting, cooperation on third-country infrastructure investment, bilateral and regional financial cooperation and cooperation projects in taxation and customs.

The Korea-Japan Finance Ministers' Meeting began in 2006 and has been held since then, but it has been suspended for nearly seven years since the meeting between then Deputy Prime Minister of Korea and Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho and then Deputy Prime Minister of Japan and Finance Minister Taro Aso in Aug. 2016.

This is the result of the two countries' relations freezing due to the installation of the comfort women statue in front of the Japanese general consulate in Busan in 2017 and Japan's export restrictions on semiconductor materials in 2019.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho and Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki agreed to hold the Korea-Japan Finance Ministers' Meeting by the end of the year at a meeting in Incheon's Songdo in early June.

Write to Kyung-Min Kang at kkm1026@hankyung.com