South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol began a series of bilateral meetings shortly after arriving in New York, United States on Monday morning local time to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

Yoon has plans to meet with leaders of nearly 10 countries in a single day to expand support for Busan’s bid to host the World Expo 2030.

Yoon held his first summit with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the afternoon, where he urged Wickremesinghe’s support for Busan’s bid for the World Expo and exchanged views on developing bilateral relations.

“I look forward to working with Sri Lanka, Korea’s key partner in development cooperation, in areas such as development cooperation, labor, climate change response, and trade and investment, aiming for a long-term partnership,” Yoon said.

“We will continue to identify cooperative projects that contribute to youth job creation, such as the Sri Lanka-Korea National Vocational Training Institute,” he added.

“Sri Lankans who have been trained in Korea came back to their homeland as highly skilled and advanced workers,” Wickremesinghe said. “We hope to promote the agreement on trade and investment cooperation with Korea to further boost bilateral trade and investment.”

The two leaders also agreed to sign the agreement on climate change cooperation between the two countries, currently under discussion, at the earliest possible time.

Yoon then met with San Marino’s Captains Regent Alessandro Scarano and Adele Tonnini. The captains regent, inheriting the tradition of the Roman Republic, are San Marino’s two heads of state.

San Marino is a small landlocked state surrounded by Italy with a population of 33,000, but it has voting rights on the Expo venue as a member of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE).

During his four-night, six-day trip to the United States, Yoon will meet with leaders of at least 30 BIE member countries to make the case for the Busan 2030 Expo.

By Pulse

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