By Sohn JiAe

President Moon Jae-in unveiled Korea's “New Southern Policy" (신新 남방정책) during his state visit to Indonesia, in Jakarta on Nov. 9.

Attending the Korea-Indonesia Business Forum at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Jakarta, President Moon said, “It’s my goal to elevate Korea’s relationship with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to the level of its relations with the four major powers around the Korean Peninsula.”

“The Korean government will strongly push forward its New Southern Policy to dramatically improve cooperative ties with ASEAN,” he stressed.

The president then outlined the concrete strategies underlying this new set of policies, including expanding Korea-ASEAN exchanges of technology, heritage, the arts and people, and reinforcing cooperation on such areas as transportation, energy, water resources and IT.

“I hope to achieve these three things with the New Southern Policy: a community for the people that connects people to people and minds to minds; a community of peace that can contribute to peace across Asia; and, lastly, a community of co-existence and co-prosperity where ASEAN countries thrive together with reciprocal economic cooperation. I’m so pleased that we start these goals with Indonesia. The deep and sound Korea-ASEAN cooperation will further accelerate exchanges between Seoul and Jakarta, for sure,” said President Moon.

President Moon also laid out his government’s plan to enhance bilateral ties with Indonesia. The plan consists of six core cooperative tasks: restore and revitalize bilateral economic cooperation; diversify areas of economic cooperation, to include such areas as defense materials and healthcare; boost cooperation on key industries; pursue people-focused economic cooperation; increase support for small- and mid-sized firms; and, lastly, expand items of trade, to cover things like machinery and consumer goods.





jiae5853@korea.kr