President Yoon begins his tour of three Southeast Asian countries...Attention to Prime Minister Ishiba's Meeting

[Anchor]
President Yoon Suk Yeol went on a tour of Southeast Asia with his wife, Kim Gun-hee, to upgrade relations with ASEAN, Korea's major export market.

Attention is focusing on whether the attendance of the ASEAN summit will lead to the first summit with Japan's new Prime Minister Ishiba.

Reporter Cho Yong-sung reports.

[Reporter]
President Yoon Suk Yeol greets the presidential office staff and government and ruling party officials who saw him off at Seongnam Seoul Airport.

President Yoon climbed into Air Force One with his wife, Kim Gun-hee, and waved and went on a tour.

After visiting the Czech Republic at the end of last month, he will go on a six-day tour of Southeast Asia for the first time in 15 days.President

Yoon will hold a summit with President Marcos in Manila, Philippines today and tomorrow, and attend the Korea-Philippines Business Forum.

It will focus on strengthening bilateral cooperation with the resource-rich Philippines, including cooperation in mineral supply chains and expansion of trade and investment.

[Park Chun-seop / Senior Secretary for Economic Affairs, Presidential Office (last 3 days): (The Philippines) is the world's second-largest nickel miner and the sixth-largest cobalt miner in terms of production in 2023. The trip will discuss ways to strengthen cooperation in the key mineral supply chain between the two countries.

On the 8th and 9th, he will meet with President Tarman in Singapore and hold a summit with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, seeking cooperation in energy supply chains and high-tech industries such as artificial intelligence and bio.

In the last two days of the tour, I will attend multilateral meetings in Laos, including the ASEAN-Korea Summit, the ASEAN-Korea-China-Japan Summit, and the East Asia Summit.

With the attendance of this summit, Korea and ASEAN plan to upgrade to a comprehensive strategic partnership for the first time in 14 years since the "strategic partnership" in 2010.

[Kim Tae-hyo / First Deputy Director of the National Security Office (on the 3rd): The establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership is expected to serve as a new opportunity to shed new light on the history of cooperation between South Korea and ASEAN over the past 35 years and seek to expand cooperation between South Korea and ASEAN in all directions.]

The possibility of the first summit since the inauguration of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is also open as the ASEAN meeting is under last-minute coordination over whether to hold a Korea-Japan summit.

The president's office said the trip will also be accompanied by an economic mission of around 40 companies, looking forward to finding practical economic cooperation measures.

I'm YTN's Cho Yong Sung.