Yoon, you're going to visit three countries in Southeast Asia.Attending the ASEAN Summit

[Anchor]
From today, President Yoon Suk Yeol will visit Southeast Asia to upgrade relations with ASEAN, Korea's major export market, and strengthen economic security.

With the attendance of the ASEAN summit, it is highly likely that the first summit with Japan's new Prime Minister Ishiba will take place.

Reporter Cho Yong-sung reports.

[Reporter]
President Yoon Suk Yeol will embark on a tour of Southeast Asia today, starting with a visit to the Philippines.

After 15 days of visiting the Czech Republic at the end of last month, he is going on a "sales diplomacy" with a schedule of five nights and six 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, South Korea and ASEAN plan to be upgraded to a "comprehensive strategic partnership" in 14 years since the "strategic partnership" in 2010.

[Kim Tae-hyo / 1st 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 Korea and ASEAN over the past 35 years and seek to expand cooperation between 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.

Reporter: Choi Young-wook Jung Tae-woo
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