South Korea, Japan Finance Ministers To Hold First Meeting In Seven Years

Japan and South Korea’s finance ministers will hold a bilateral meeting in early May.

This will be the first time in seven years, heralding closer cooperation in economic policy that has been hampered by diplomatic conflict.

They will meet on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meetings, due to be held on May 2-5 in Incheon, South Korea.

South Korean Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho said; “It is significant in that it will be the first step towards reviving regular bilateral meetings."

Regular annual meetings between the two countries’ finance ministers have been suspended since 2016 due to disputes over wartime history.

But last month, at a summit between South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol and Japan’s Fumio Kishida, the two promised to put aside their difficult history and work together.