On the morning of the 21st, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday, President Yoon Seok-yeol returned to Korea via Seongnam Seoul Airport on Air Force Unit 1, a dedicated plane, after an eight-day, six-night, eight-day tour to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland.
At the airport on this day, People’s Power Emergency Response Committee Chairman Jin-seok Jeong, Chief of Staff to the President Dae-ki Kim, Minister of Public Administration and Security Sang-min Lee, and First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun-dong went out to greet President Yoon.
President Yoon focused on ‘economic diplomacy’ through his first tour in his second year in office.
Through the first state visit since the establishment of diplomatic ties between Korea and the UAE on the 14th to 17th, it attracted an investment of US$30 billion (approximately 37.26 trillion won) and signed 48 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) in various fields.
In the second visit to Switzerland, he self-proclaimed “Korea’s No. 1 salesperson” and focused on sales diplomacy.
On the 18th and 19th, President Yoon attended the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), also known as the Davos Forum, for the first time as a Korean president in nine years.
Through successive events, he expanded his contact with CEOs of global companies and repeatedly requested investment in Korea. He did not hold a separate in-flight meeting on his return home.
Shin Min-kyung, Hankyung.com reporter [email protected]