Seoul, April 28 (IANS) The South Korean Finance Ministry on Friday said that the country has been invited to participate in an upcoming G7 ministerial meeting, which will take place in Japan next month.
It marked South Korea’s first invitation to the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting since 2008, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Japan also invited India, Brazil, Indonesia, Comoros and Singapore to the three-day meeting that will kick off on May 11, reports Yonhap News Agency.
“The invitation reflects the restored Seoul-Tokyo relationship, as well as South Korea’s increasing economic presence,” the Ministry said in a statement.
It said South Korea will join the international efforts to address the crisis in the global economy through the meeting and seek to expand cooperation with G7 members.
Earlier this week, South Korea put Japan back on its “white list” of trusted trading partners, three years after its removal, in a move to improve their bilateral economic and diplomatic relationship.
In 2019, South Korea took Japan off its white list following Tokyo’s removal of Seoul from its own list in apparent retaliation against the South Korean Supreme Court rulings the previous year that ordered two Japanese companies to pay compensation to Korean forced labour victims during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Last month, however, the two sides vowed to reinstate each other after South Korea announced plans to compensate the victims without asking Japan for contributions.
–IANS
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