President Moon Jae-in's Northern Europe tour begins in Finland, where he is set to call for deepening the two sides' partnerships on peace as well as innovative and inclusive growth.
Becoming just the second South Korean leader to be bestowed a state visit to Finland, President Moon officially begins his trip with a summit with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinisto.
Officials say the two will discuss ways to revitalize their respective economies by supporting exchanges between startups.
With Finland known for its advanced start-up ecosystems, the two countries will also sign a memorandum of understanding aimed at expanding personnel exchanges and investment support for small and midsized firms.
President Moon will also meet Finland's Prime Minister and other senior Finnish officials during his stay.
Major preparations are underway to lift the sunken tour boat off the bed of the Danube river.
As of 8 p.m. local time on Sunday, 3 of 4 main wire harnesses had been connected to the boat.
Local authorities are also taking measures to ensure what is inside the boat does not go missing in the process.
This is not easy as there's a large amount of debris on the river bed as the Margaret Bridge, where the boat sank, was blown up during the Second World War.
However, the rescue team expects to salvage the boat as early as Monday afternoon.
The South Korean government has called for the swift normalization of the National Assembly to get work done on an extra budget bill.
In a meeting this morning, ruling party lawmakers, the Blue House and government officials raised concerns that the 5-point-7 billion U.S. dollar supplementary budget bill has been sitting idle for almost two months due to the parliamentary standstill.
They stressed that deliberations must start this week in order to have the extra budget implemented in July at latest to tackle downside economic risks and help areas recover from a series of natural disasters.
The National Assembly has been out of action after the ruling party and three minor opposition parties fast-tracked key reform bills in late April.
The main opposition Liberty Korea Party is demanding that the other parties withdraw the move.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has reiterated that President Trump will decide whether to hit China with more tariffs after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 world leader's summit in Japan later this month.
Speaking to American cable network CNBC on Sunday, Mnuchin said Trump will try to determine if his Chinese counterpart is willing to head towards what he calls the "right direction" to reshape the two sides' trade and commercial relationship.
Mnuchin added Washington is prepared to move forward with a deal, but if China is unwilling to do so, President Trump would be "perfectly happy" to impose more tariffs to "re-balance the relationship".
Trump has already imposed 25 percent tariffs on 2-hundred billion U.S. dollars worth of Chinese goods, but is now weighing whether to impose new tariffs on other Chinese products worth 3-hundred-25 billion dollars.
Source: Arirang News
No comments:
Post a Comment