South Korea’s Yoon begins foreign tour for 2030 expo bid, Vietnam state visit

Seoul, June 19 (BNA): South Korean President Yoon Sok Yul left Seoul for Paris today, Monday, to support his country’s bid to host Expo 2030, as part of a foreign trip that will also include meetings with the leaders of France and Vietnam and his office. He said.

Yoon will address the General Assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), organizers of the World’s Fair, to promote South Korea’s bid. Reuters reported that the meeting runs from June 20-21.

The city of Busan in southeastern South Korea faces competition from Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh, Italy’s Rome and Ukraine’s Odyssey for the global event. The host country for Expo 2030 is expected to be decided in November.

Yun will meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday.

The two leaders last met in June 2022 in Madrid on the sidelines of a NATO summit and agreed to expand cooperation in the space and nuclear energy sectors.

Yoon’s office said Yoon will then head to Vietnam on Thursday for a three-day state visit accompanied by a 205-person business delegation.

Yoon, who calls himself South Korea’s “number one salesman”, has made deal-making and “sales diplomacy” a staple of his overseas trips since taking office.

“It will be the largest business delegation since the start of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration,” Choi Sang-mook, the president’s chief secretary for economic affairs, said on Tuesday.

MI