Yoon touts sales diplomacy on return from France, Vietnam

President Yoon Suk Yeol, center, presides over a Cabinet meeting at the Yongsan presidential office in central Seoul on Tuesday, after completing a trip to Paris and Hanoi last week. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

President Yoon Suk Yeol stressed the importance of sales diplomacy in attracting large investments to overcome global crises as he reviewed the results of his trip to France and Vietnam last week in a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.

"In order to overcome the global complex crisis and continue our economic growth, which is highly dependent on foreign countries, I have been actively promoting economic diplomacy and sales diplomacy as a salesman of Korea," said Yoon at the meeting at the Yongsan presidential office, ordering follow-up measures to agreements signed in Hanoi and Paris. "Recently, the results of these efforts have been showing little by little."

Yoon returned from a six-day overseas trip Saturday and highlighted his English-language presentation at the general assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) in Paris to promote Busan's 2030 World Expo bid and bilateral summit with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Referring to his summit with Macron, Yoon stressed that France, as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, "has always played a responsible role in the international community regarding North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations."

He noted that France, as a key ally, has also "maintained a stern stance on North Korean human rights issues," and that the two countries are also cooperating in promoting their Indo-Pacific strategies.

South Korea and France will further strengthen cooperation in the aviation, space and cyber fields as well as clean energy, including next-generation nuclear power plants and hydrogen energy, he added.

Yoon stressed a key achievement of his Paris trip was attracting large investments from European companies.

During the trip, Korea attracted a total investment of $940 million from six European high-tech companies related to rechargeable batteries, electric vehicles and offshore wind projects.

Korea attracted more than $16.5 billion in investment in the first half of this year alone, the largest ever, Yoon added.

Yoon also called this fourth round of BIE presentations "the most important presentation that influences the votes of member countries ahead of the decision of the host country in November."

Korea's Busan is up against Saudi Arabia's Riyadh and Italy's Rome, which also made presentations at the BIE assembly last week.

Yoon said the World Expo, if Busan wins the bid, "will become a solution platform to solve the complex crises facing humanity, such as the climate crisis, digital divide and Global South issues," referring to countries that have a relatively low level of economic and industrial development.

The World Expo, he said, could also become "a venue for global companies to gather and create new businesses."

He appealed to the charms of Korea's advanced digital technology and K-culture, stressing that the Busan Expo will be a "dynamic and attractive place for exchanges."

Yoon said that on his trip abroad, he always makes visits to competitive universities to meet with professors, experts and students to discuss social changes and global agenda, especially in the areas of cutting-edge science and technology.

At the Sorbonne University in Paris, Yoon proposed the establishment of an international body to establish ethical principles and norms in the digital society.

This is a follow-up to his so-called "New York initiative," where he emphasized the need for a new digital order at the UN General Assembly and New York University in September last year.

In his three-day state visit to Hanoi for a bilateral summit with Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong, Yoon said he focused on strengthening strategic communication channels and expanding cooperation in the defense industry.

"I think it is significant that the Vietnamese government has agreed to cooperate with us to deal with the North Korean nuclear issue and to protect freedom of navigation, order and international norms in the Indo-Pacific region," Yoon said.

The Korean government "will actively support Vietnam in strengthening its coastal security capabilities," he added.

He also said the two countries "will create a cooperative model that can contribute to stabilizing the supply chain of our key industries by combining Vietnam's abundant mineral resources with our excellent processing technology."

Yoon ordered related ministries to make an effort to follow up on measures so that his 205-member business delegation to Hanoi can swiftly reap the results from the 111 memoranda of understanding (MOUs) signed with Vietnamese companies.

He called on the ministries to conduct consultations between the two countries' authorities to resolve difficulties faced by Korean companies entering the Vietnamese market, such as improving infrastructure, obtaining permits and securing human resources.

Korea plans to actively support Vkist, or the Vietnam-Korea Institute of Science and Technology, "to be reborn as a cradle for fostering science and technology talents," Yoon added, as a part of broader efforts to share Korean knowledge and language.

Vkist was established as an official development assistance project in 2014 based on the model of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in Seoul.

Yoon noted that "large-scale investments were possible because we created an institutional environment needed by businesses through extensive deregulation, as well as sales diplomacy, including efforts to improve South Korea-U.S. relations and South Korea-Japan relations."

Over the past year, the state-funded Saemangeum industrial complex in Gunsan, North Jeolla, attracted some 6.6 trillion won ($5.07 billion) in investments from 30 companies, Yoon said. This is more than four times the amount pledged nine years ago, or some 1.5 trillion won, when the Saemangeum national industrial complex was established in 2013.

He stressed that the government will continue to provide the support needed for businesses to operate freely and dynamically not only in Saemangeum but anywhere in the country.

Yoon then instructed Cabinet members to "put all efforts into stabilizing people's livelihood and restoring the economy so that the people can feel the fruits of change."

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]