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| gettyimagesbank |
By Yi Whan-woo
The government is considering resuming an annual meeting between the finance ministers of Korea and Japan in response to reconciliation efforts pledged by the leaders of the two countries at their latest summit, according to sources, Tuesday.
If realized, it will be the first meeting between the top economic officials of the two countries since 2016. The meetings were suspended due to frayed bilateral relations over a string of historical disputes and a trade row.
The Ministry of Economy and Finance said it has yet to take steps concerning a possible finance ministers' meeting after President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to restore bilateral dialogues on the economy, diplomacy and security, among other areas during their summit last week.
The sources still said Seoul's finance ministry is open to setting up a dialogue channel between the top economic policymakers of the two sides ― Choo Kyung-ho of Korea and Shunichi Suzuki of Japan.
"It is likely the finance ministers of the two countries will meet on the sidelines of upcoming multilateral ministerial meetings," a source said.
That multilateral event is the finance ministers' meeting of the G20 and ASEAN+3, a collective group of 10 Southeast Asian countries plus Korea, China and Japan.
Another source speculated that a currency swap between Seoul and Tokyo is not likely to resume even if the bilateral dialogue is restored, noting that such a swap is not urgent at the moment.
The two countries agreed to a $2 billion currency swap in July 2001 and the amount rose to $70 billion in 2011. But the currency swap has been suspended since February 2015 when bilateral relations turned sour.
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