- Kim Hee-sang, Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, attended a session on APEC at the 2025 BFA Annual Conference and held high-level economic consultations with China on the sidelines of this conference.
1. Kim Hee-sang, Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visited China from March 25 to 27 to attend the 2025 Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference, held in Boao, Hainan Province. On the second day of the conference, March 26, he participated as a panelist* in the session titled “Revitalizing APEC: Meeting Challenges and Sharing Opportunities Together,” where he introduced Korea’s initiatives and activities as this year’s APEC host.
*(Panelists, 6 in total) ▲ KIM Hee-sang, Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea ▲ Jenny SHIPLEY, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand ▲Carlos VASQUEZ, Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) Chair of APEC 2024 ▲WONG Kan Seng, Former Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore ▲Claus RETTIG, Member of the Extended Executive Board & President of Asia Pacific, Evonik Industries AG ▲Warwick SMITH, Fellow, Australian Institute of International Affairs
2. Furthermore, on the occasion of his visit to China, Deputy Minister Kim also visited Beijing, where he held consecutive meetings on March 27 with Vice Minister Yan Dong of China’s Ministry of Commerce and Director-General Bai Tian of the Department of International Economic Affairs at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In these meetings, both sides exchanged extensive views on strengthening economic cooperation, such as enhancing high-level exchanges and stabilizing supply chains, with Korea and China set to consecutively serve as host economies for APEC in 2025 and 2026, respectively.
3. Specifically, during the APEC session of the conference, Deputy Minister Kim highlighted APEC’s growing significance in addressing new global challenges such as geoeconomic shifts and the emergence of new technologies, amid rising uncertainties in the global order. He emphasized APEC’s role as an open forum that fosters creative solutions through discussions among member economies, as well as enables business networking and delivers tangible outcomes via the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) mechanism. Furthermore, he underscored that Korea, as this year’s APEC host, is working to produce key deliverables at the upcoming Economic Leaders’ Meeting, with its principal focus on AI and demographic changes. He also reaffirmed Korea’s commitment to close cooperation with China, which will be next year’s APEC host.
※ As this year’s APEC host, Korea has selected “Building a Sustainable Tomorrow: Connect, Innovate, Prosper” as the theme and priorities for APEC 2025, with AI cooperation and responses to demographic changes as deliverables.
4. The session panelists developed a shared understanding on the significance of APEC’s unique attributes including its voluntary, non-binding, and consensus-based decision-making framework and business engagement, as well as its importance as the largest economic cooperation forum in the Asia-Pacific region. In this context, the panelists expressed high expectations for the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Gyeongju later this year, anticipating in-depth discussions among key Asia-Pacific economies on critical regional issues facing the Asia-Pacific region such as supply chains, digitalization & AI, and demographic challenges.
5. On March 27, Deputy Minister Kim met with Vice Minister Yan Dong of China’s Ministry of Commerce in Beijing. During the meeting, both sides agreed to work together to strengthen economic cooperation between the two countries by ▲creating a predictable and reliable business environment for companies operating in both markets, and through this, enhancing bilateral trade and investment cooperation, ▲continuing collaboration on supply chain including the secure management of key commodities such as critical minerals and urea, and ▲accelerating follow-up negotiations on the Korea-China FTA in the services and investment sectors. Deputy Minister Kim also emphasized the need for Korea and China to strengthen economic cooperation both bilaterally and multilaterally, particularly amid rising global economic uncertainties. To this end, he suggested that both countries continue close communication through cooperation channels such as the Korea-China Joint Economic Committee.
6. On the same day, Deputy Minister Kim met with Director-General Bai Tian of the Department of International Economic Affairs at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both sides agreed on the importance of cooperation not only at the bilateral level but also within regional and multilateral fora such as APEC and the G20, and pledged to actively collaborate on areas of mutual interest. Additionally, given that Korea and China will consecutively host APEC in 2025 and 2026, respectively, both sides agreed to maintain close communication to ensure the successful hosting of the two APEC Economic Leaders’ Meetings.
7. Meanwhile, during his visit to Beijing, Deputy Minister Kim also held a separate meeting with the heads of Korean public institutions in charge of economic, trade, and investment affairs based in Beijing. He paid close attention to concerns related to the investment and business environment for Korean companies in China, and exchanged views on strengthening support for Korean firms entering the Chinese market amid U.S.-China competition as well as on long-term strategies for Korea-China economic cooperation.
※ Participants: Head of Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) China Office, Head of the Beijing Office of the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), Head of the China Office of the Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources Corporation (KOMIR), Head of the Beijing Representative Office of the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-SURE), Head of the Beijing Office of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), and Head of the Beijing Office of the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME)
8. Deputy Minister Kim’s visit to China was seen as an opportunity to reaffirm the mutual understanding that, in the face of increasing uncertainties in the global economic environment, it is important for Korea and China to maintain close communication at all levels and enhance mutual trust to advance economic cooperation at the bilateral, regional, and global levels. Going forward, the Korean government plans to continue identifying areas of cooperation and make every diplomatic effort to foster a more mature and future-oriented Korea-China relationship.