Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Dukgeun Ahn visited Tokyo on April 22 and met with Saitō Ken, Japan’s Economy, Trade and Industry Minister, in commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the Korea-Japan Summit held March 2023 and “shuttle diplomacy.”

 

The ministers discussed follow-up measures to bilateral summit agenda items in industry, trade, and energy, as well as forward-looking cooperation. A first since 2018, the official talks were held as an extension of the two countries’ recently strengthening bilateral relations and mutual visits.

 

Both sides highly assessed the fact that the collaboration between Korean and Japanese companies is kicking into high gear on the backs of the bilateral summit diplomacy and decided to continue promoting the cooperation between their governments and business communities, while giving mutual support to investment companies by installing a regular communication channel between Korea’s MOTIE and the Seoul-Japan Club (SJC), and between Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Korea Business Association (KOBA).

 

Moreover, the two sides shared the view that wider cooperation is needed in decarbonization and new energy areas for achieving carbon neutrality goals by 2050, agreeing to cooperate through the Carbon Free Energy (CFE) Initiative. In this regard, a director-level climate policy cooperation working group will be established for global clean technology and product evaluation and global carbon regulatory response.

 

The ministers agreed to push forward cooperation in clean hydrogen and ammonia and to discuss detailed measures through the director general-level Korea-Japan hydrogen cooperation dialogue in the future. In addition, they concurred that supply chain stabilization is a pending challenge for both countries and agreed to install a dialogue channel for information exchange.

 

Furthermore, both sides noted the importance of economic and trade cooperation among Korea, Japan, and China, on which Japan expressed support for Korea’s successful hosting of the 13^th Korea-Japan-China economy and trade ministers’ meeting this year. The two countries will also further coordination on the Korea-U.S.-Japan trilateral meeting among their industry and commerce leaders.

 

Lastly, the trade and industry chiefs agreed to make joint efforts on issues concerning the World Trade Organization (WTO) reform, including the WTO dispute settlement system, investment facilitation for development, and e-commerce moratorium negotiations.