President Moon Jae-in held an informal meeting over tea with a delegation of Korean business leaders traveling with him on his first overseas trip to the United States on his first day in Washington D.C. today. President Moon encouraged the business leaders and expressed his gratitude to Korean businesses for their efforts to tap global markets, increase investments and create jobs.

President Moon stressed the necessity of shifting toward job creation and innovation-driven growth in order to address such structural problems as low growth, a low birth rate and the socio-economic divide. He called upon the business leaders to endeavor for transparent, mutually supportive management.

The gathering today was also attended by President Kim Joo-young of the Federation of Korea Trade Unions in consideration of the importance of the development of mutually supportive, cooperative relations between labor and management.

Going around five roundtables to which business leaders from different areas, including automobiles, aviation, energy, the environment, electronics and ICT, were assigned by sector, President Moon had informal talks with the many entrepreneurs from conglomerates, small and medium-sized businesses, middle-market companies and venture firms.

During the event, President Moon expressed the hope that business leaders would be able to produce meaningful results during their visit to the United States, asking them to promote Korea’s attractive investment environment to American entrepreneurs.  

The President expressed regret that he was only able to have his first meeting with the business leaders in a foreign country even though he had wanted to meet them promptly following his inauguration. He went on to say that he intended to share the new Administration’s economic policies and collect various opinions by holding another meeting with business leaders at the earliest date possible after returning to Korea.