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| ▲ President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on June 27, 2023. (Yonhap) |
Yoon-Cabinet meeting
Yoon says his 'sales diplomacy' helped attract massive investments
By Lee Haye-ah
SEOUL, June 27 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday that his focus on "sales diplomacy" during overseas trips, coupled with sweeping deregulation, helped attract massive investments in the country.
Yoon made the remark during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office, three days after returning from a trip to France and Vietnam.
"In order to overcome the global polycrisis and continue the growth of our economy, which is heavily dependent on external factors, I have actively carried out economic diplomacy and sales diplomacy as a salesman of the Republic of Korea," he said.
In the year since he took office, the state-funded industrial complex in Saemangeum, a reclaimed area in the southwestern coastal city of Gunsan, has attracted 6.6 trillion won (US$5.07 billion) in investment from 30 companies, or more than four times the amount pledged over the preceding nine years, Yoon said.
"Such large-scale investments were possible because we created an institutional environment needed by businesses through sales diplomacy and efforts to improve South Korea-U.S. relations and South Korea-Japan relations, as well as sweeping deregulation," he said.
Yoon said the government will continue to provide the necessary support so businesses can operate freely and dynamically not only in Saemangeum but throughout the country.
He also instructed Cabinet members to make all-out efforts to stabilize people's livelihoods and revive the economy in the second half of the year amid positive indicators, such as slowing inflation and an improving trade balance.
Last week, Yoon traveled to France to promote South Korea's bid to host the 2030 World Expo at a general assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions, the international body in charge of overseeing the Expo, before traveling to Vietnam for a state visit.
"The Busan Expo will be a solutions platform that will help solve the polycrisis facing humanity, from the climate crisis and the digital gap to the issue of the global south," he said. Busan is the southeastern city bidding to host the 2030 World Expo in competition against Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Rome, Italy.
"It will be a meeting venue where the world's enterprises will gather to create new business," he said.
Yoon recalled that during his trip to France, six European companies announced plans to invest $940 million in South Korea's batteries, future cars and other cutting-edge industries.
He also instructed each ministry to take thorough follow-up measures to help produce quick results from the 111 memorandums of understanding signed between South Korean and Vietnamese businesses on the sidelines of his visit to Hanoi.
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