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| Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the OECD Choi Sang-dae |
Choi Sang-dae, former second vice minister of economy and finance, has been appointed as the Permanent Representative of Korea to the OECD earlier this month.
Choi will officially begin his years-long duties in Paris, France, on Sept. 21. He is Korea's 13th ambassador to the OECD.
Throughout his career of over 30 years in the Korean government, Choi has earned renown as a budget expert, taking up a range of key positions at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Planning and Budget, as well as the presidential office.
Choi also worked as a senior economist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., building a global career in the sustainable development field as well.
Under the Yoon administration, the former second vice minister played a leading role in preparing and passing supplementary budget plans aimed at supporting small and medium-sized businesses and ensuring public welfare and livelihoods.
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| Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the OECD Choi Sang-dae, former second vice minister of the economy and finance, speaks during a government budget ministerial meeting on June 29. Newsis |
"I think one of the crucial tasks of the ambassador at the OECD is to acquire insights on global economic and social policy trends and to assess their impact on the Korean economy. As I focus on providing feedback on the implications of these global trends, I hope to contribute to the formation of the government's policy agenda," Choi told The Korea Times during a recent phone interview.
"While closely interacting and collaborating with ambassadors from 37 other member countries as well as non-member countries, I hope to contribute to the Korean government's future policy formulation by studying the latest economic and social policy trends among advanced countries and by sharing insights on which of the trends have the most significant implications for Korea's economic and social policies. At the same time, Korea's experiences of successful policy agendas will be shared and discussed with global counterparts."
Specifically, the ambassador pointed to the need to provide medium- and long-term strategic perspectives on the government's key policies related to the three major structural reforms that the Yoon administration is pushing ahead with in the areas of labor, education and pension.
He also thinks restoring fiscal soundness, which deteriorated over the course of the pandemic, and shaping carbon-neutral policy goals are major issues that the Korean government has to focus on solving, with which he hopes to facilitate policy formulation through his insightful sharing about the latest economic and social policy directions of the global peer countries.
Choi said his expertise in government budget planning has deepened his understanding on interconnectivity of economic and social policies and their implications on the economy.
"It has been essential to understand that the government budget planning is not solely fiscal matters, but they're deeply intertwined with economic and social policies of the country, because budgets are carried out to back the government's policy direction to solve certain economic and social problems," Choi said.
He also stressed that he will do his utmost effort to help the city of Busan's bid to host the World Expo 2030.
"Another important mission I consider is to support Busan's successful bid for hosting the World Expo 2030. I will play a role in strengthening the network among representatives of OECD member countries and non-member countries in Paris, where the headquarters of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) is located," he said.
Choi graduated from Yonsei University with a bachelor's degree in economics, and earned a master's in public policy from the University of Maryland.
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