BALI, Indonesia, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho has called for Indonesia’s support for South Korean businesses operating in the Southeast Asian country, his office said Saturday.
Choo and his Indonesian counterpart, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, held talks in the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Friday on the margins of a Group of 20 (G-20) meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs.
Touching on the reshaping of global supply chains to ensure their resiliency, Choo expressed Seoul’s hopes for “close cooperation between South Korea, a technology powerhouse, and resource-abundant Indonesia,”
according to his office.
“Major South Korean enterprises in the automobile, battery, chemical and steel industries have entered the Indonesian market and been actively investing in supply chains,” Choo was quoted by his office as saying.
“Let’s work together to strengthen supply chain cooperation to pursue harmony between Indonesia’s upstream and South Korea’s downstream,” he added.
An upstream sector refers to companies supplying raw materials and components, while downstream industries produce and sell final products.
Sri Mulyani said Indonesia hopes that South Korea will invest in its efforts to transition to a green economy, involving environmentally friendly energy production and automobiles.
Choo used the meeting to ask for Indonesia’s backing for South Korea’s push to host the 2030 World Expo in its southeastern port city of Busan.
On the same day, Choo also met with his Singaporean counterpart, Lawrence Wong, on bilateral economic cooperation. Choo called on Singapore to work together to improve the world trade environment as founding members of the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
Wong called for cooperation with South Korea in the efforts to revitalize the digital economy and set related norms.
Source: Yonhap News Agency