President Moon Jae-in is headed to Singapore and Papua New Guinea for a six-day trip.
The focus of the two-nation tour this time,… is the economy.... and hopefully sealing some more trade deals for South Korea.
Our Shin Se-min is traveling with the president and files this report.
President Moon Jae-in is traveling to Singapore,… the start of the two-nation trip,... during which he will zero in on economic cooperation under the New Southern Policy he introduced a year ago.
The trip comes just a couple days after he revamped his economic team,… replacing the Finance Minister and the presidential chief of staff for economic policy.
From the 13th to the 16th, the president will be in the city-state of Singapore,… attending summit meetings related to ASEAN, like the Korea-ASEAN summit and the ASEAN Plus Three Summit, which includes Korea, China and Japan, and the East Asian Summit.
There, the president is expected to propose measures that will help accelerate his New Southern Policy,… such as hosting a special Korea-ASEAN Summit in 2019 and setting up a Korea-Mekong Summit to bring Korea together with countries like Cambodia and Laos.
On the last two days of his tour,… from the 17th 'til the 18th, President Moon will be in Papua New Guinea for the Asia-Pacific Summit, which brings together 21 countries from the Pacific Rim.
The president plans to outline his vision for an innovative and inclusive nation,… and to pitch the idea of creating a joint APEC Digital Innovation Fund, which will be used to improve the region's digital capabilities.
The president will also be squeezing bilateral summits in between meetings, trying to bring the international community on board his drive for peace on the divided Korean Peninsula.
"With this trip, the Moon administration hopes to establish complete denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula by improving the international community's understanding of our North Korea policy and firm up our base of support."
On his schedule,… are bilateral meetings with leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
"And the presidential office says it is working on scheduling one-on-one meetings with the U.S. Vice President, Mike Pence, as well as with Chinese President Xi Jinping,… during which the president would likely try and put some speed on what appears to be slowing progress on North Korea-related diplomacy.
Shin Se-min, Arirang News."
