By Lee Hana

President Moon Jae-in, visiting Thailand ahead of the upcoming Korea-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) special summit slated for Busan later this month, attended the ASEAN Plus Three Summit on Nov. 4 in Bangkok. 

Attending the event in the Thai capital with the leaders of the 10 member states of (ASEAN) as well as China and Japan, the president stressed the importance of maintaining free trade to achieve peace and prosperity in East Asia. 

In his opening remarks, President Moon said the winds of protectionism were blowing once more some 20 years after ASEAN member nations got together with China, Japan and Korea for their first joint summit. 

"We need to protect free trade from shaking during these windy times and turn the world economy away from contractionary policies and toward expansionary ones," he said. 

"Aside from the spread of protectionism, we need to cooperate in many issues including fighting terrorism and climate change and handling disaster management. Korea will continue to work alongside its Asian partners to tackle various challenges so that we can collectively improve our response capabilities."

The president added, "Korea has been pushing its New Southern Policy while visiting all ten ASEAN member nations in an effort to strengthen our connectivity. The stronger the ties among ASEAN, Korea, China and Japan, the closer our East Asian community will become. I hope that the Korea-ASEAN special summit and the Korea-Mekong summit slated for Busan from Nov. 25 will help further elevate our multilateral relations."

Launched in 1997, the ASEAN Plus Three Summit marked ASEAN's 30th anniversary with the heads of state of Korea, China and Japan invited to the inaugural event. The body every year holds over 60 conferences on topics including finance, food, health care and people-to-people exchanges and carries out over 100 cooperative projects.
 
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