Foreign Ministers of 12 Countries Adopt Joint Declaration on 'COVID-19 Response'... Includes Encouragement for 'Allowing Business Travel'

Key Points: International Health Response Cooperation Including Vaccine and Treatment Development, Minimizing Socioeconomic Impact
Minister Kang Kyung-wha's Remarks on Measures to Normalize Economic Activities and Daily Life

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha is speaking at a briefing for the foreign diplomatic corps in Korea on COVID-19 held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 6th. Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha held a multilateral telephone consultation with foreign ministers of the International Coordination Group on COVID-19 for about 90 minutes from 9 p.m., the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on the 18th.

The participating foreign ministers adopted the "Declaration of the Ministerial Coordination Group on COVID-19 on maintaining essential global links." The telephone consultation included foreign ministers from 12 countries, including South Korea, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Morocco, Peru, Singapore, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

This declaration contains the necessity of international cooperation in responding to COVID-19, including ▲mitigating disruptions to the global economy, trade, and travel, ▲international cooperation in health responses such as vaccine and treatment development, and ▲sharing best practices. In particular, at South Korea's proposal, it includes encouraging the allowance of essential travel, such as for businesspeople, to minimize the social and economic impacts of COVID-19.

This joint declaration summarizes the discussions of the coordination body in which South Korea has actively participated since its inception. Going forward, it plans to promote international cooperation among participating countries in responding to COVID-19.

Additionally, the foreign ministers focused on discussing measures to normalize economic activities and daily life in each country. Among these, Minister Kang made remarks related to this at the request of Canada, the proposing country of this meeting.

Minister Kang stated, "Since the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, our government has continuously sought ways to block the spread of infection while enabling the economic activities and daily lives of our citizens," and explained, "We prepared thorough quarantine measures to hold the National Assembly general election as scheduled on the 15th, and we are carefully reviewing the conditions and preparations for transitioning to a daily quarantine system."

She continued, "The basic prerequisite for normalizing economic activities is to continue actively implementing the '3T'?Testing, Tracing, and Treating?to block the spread of COVID-19 infection," emphasizing, "It is desirable to implement gradual normalization measures of economic activities by region and industry, considering importance and risk within the scope that each country's medical and quarantine systems can handle."

The foreign ministers attending the meeting agreed on the importance of a gradual and cautious approach to normalizing economic activities and the significance of Testing, Tracing, and Treating (3T). They also agreed to continue close bilateral and multilateral communication and cooperation on COVID-19 response while actively sharing best practices with each other.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.