South Korea's finance minister on Thursday said Seoul and Beijing should seek better economic cooperation on the supply chain for raw materials.
"We should lead global industries by cooperating on supply chain and technologies across new sectors such as bio and clean energy, as well as across raw materials such as urea, gallium, graphite," South Korea's Choi Sang-mok said in opening remarks on a bilateral video conference with Chairman Zheng Shanjie of The National Development and Reform Commission in China.
The conference was taking place as both South Korea and China expressed a wish to improve ties in their first foreign ministerial talks in seven months earlier this week, and as a summit of the leaders of China, South Korea and Japan is planned for the end of May in Seoul.
Korean Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok speaks during a trilateral meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki on the sidelines of the IMF/G20 meetings, at the U.S. Treasury in Washington, on April 17 (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo)
In 2021, South Korea suffered a major supply crunch of urea, - a type of nitrogen used as fertilizer in agriculture as well as to curb diesel and industrial emissions - due to export restrictions by China.
South Korea has been making efforts to stabilize the supply of key material imports.