Korea, Japan agree to establish e-trade system, adopt IT initiative

President Kim Dae-Jung, currently visiting Japan, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori held summit talks Saturday and agreed to exert joint efforts to expand trade and rectify the trade imbalance between Korea and Japan. To this end, the leaders reached a consensus on holding regular, working-level talks.

Kim and Mori also agreed to step up working-level business talks in order to conclude a mutual investment treaty within this year and to set up a business forum designed to collect opinions from private businesses regarding a free trade agreement. However, concerning the investment pact, Prime Minister Mori said the party that introduces investments should take responsibility for resolving potential labor disputes.

Since President Kim pointed out that the free trade convention would aggravate the trade imbalance under the present circumstances, the government leaders concurred that Japan should expand its investment in the component material manufacturing industry and the two countries should jointly endeavor to expand the balance of mutual trade.

To this end, the two leaders selected nine tasks for substantial cooperation, including boosting electronic commerce, establishing cyber-governments, exchanging information technology technicians and building up Trans-Eurasia information networks.

Kim and Mori shared the view that the two countries should maintain close consultations in the development of both South-North Korea relations and Japan-North Korea relations to produce positive results. In particular, Kim promised Mori to render his positive assistance for Tokyo's effort to improve ties with Pyongyang.

President Kim asked the Japanese premier to solve the issue of granting Korean residents in Japan the right of political participation in local governments within the year. However, Mori avoided answering the request directly, saying that he would continue to exert efforts in this matter.

The leaders of the two countries are scheduled to hold a second round of summit talks at a breakfast meeting Sunday.

Choi Young-Mook ymook@donga.com