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South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday launched a special summit with 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the country's southeastern city of Busan.
The 2014 ASEAN-South Korea commemorative summit will run for two days through Friday, the presidential office said. Opening the special summit, the CEO summit with business leaders was held first at the Busan Exhibition & Convention Center, or BEXCO.
Park said in a keynote speech that South Korea and the ASEAN have developed a mutually-beneficial cooperative relationship, stressing the need for further efforts to foster their economic partnership a leap forward.
The ASEAN, including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam, emerged as a key trade partner of South Korea since the two sides launched dialogue in 1989.
The two sides signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in May 2006, which more than doubled trade volume between them. Trade between South Korea and the ASEAN rose from about 61 billion U.S. dollars in 2006 to more than 130 billion dollars in 2013.
The ASEAN is the No.2 trade partner of South Korea, following China, and the third-largest investment destination of South Korean companies.
To boost bilateral economic partnership, Park made three proposals during the CEO summit, including further cooperation in the services industry, further liberalization through bilateral FTAs and active participation of small companies in"global value chain."
After meeting with some 570 businessmen, Park will hold back-to- back meetings with ASEAN leaders. The special summit will be hosted by Park on Friday.
On Wednesday, Park announced an effective conclusion of the FTA negotiations with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at a hotel in Busan.
The FTA negotiations, launched in August 2012, came to a conclusion in 28 months, becoming the fifth FTA deal reached under the Park Geun-hye administration.
Vietnam agreed to liberalize 92.2 percent of all goods imported from South Korea in terms of import value. South Korea's liberalization rate was 94.7 percent. Enditem
