The Diplomat
The President of South Korea, Moon Jae In, will pay a state visit to Spain from 15 to 17 June, which will include a stay in Barcelona in the company of His Majesty the King, according to diplomatic sources confirmed by The Diplomat.
With this visit, Moon Jae In will return the visit made by Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain to the Republic of Korea in October 2019, on the eve of the opening of the 70th anniversary of the Spanish-Korean bilateral relations.
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The South Korean leader will arrive in Madrid on Tuesday, the 15th, where he will be received by Felipe VI and where he will hold a series of meetings, including a meeting with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and will carry out the classic programme for State visits, which includes a gala dinner at the Royal Palace.
Moon Jae In will also have the opportunity to meet with business leaders in the Spanish capital, although he will also do so on Wednesday, the 16th, when he travels to Barcelona. There, in the company of the King, he will take part in the opening day of the Cercle d’Economia, which is being held in Barcelona, after several years of being based in Sitges.
According to La Vanguardia, the King and Moon Jae In will meet with some twenty large companies with interests in Spain and South Korea, and will then attend the inaugural dinner of the conference at the W Hotel, to which between 250 and 300 guests have been invited, in an evening in which all distance and health and safety measures will be respected.
The newspaper adds that, in addition to this commercial aspect, the South Korean president’s visit to Barcelona will also serve as an attraction for South Korean tourism, a group among which a sharp drop in visits to the city was noted even before the outbreak of the pandemic. The reason for this decline was related to the assault in the summer of 2019 on the Korean Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism, Hyewon Kim, when she was on an official visit. Hyewon Kin was pulled off a motorbike in the Poblenou neighbourhood and after spending several days in the Hospital del Mar with brain injuries, she died, which caused a great stir in South Korea and a drastic decrease in visits by South Koreans.
At the official events held in Seoul during his visit in 2019, Felipe VI highlighted the brotherhood between the Asian capital and Barcelona, underlining their Olympic past and their aspiration to lead the smart city.
The Cercle conference will take place from 16 to 18 June. Among the participants will be high-ranking representatives of the Spanish government, headed by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and with the presence of the ministers Nadia Calviño and Yolanda Díaz. On behalf of the Generalitat, the president, Pere Aragonès, will join the leaders of the Valencian Community, Andalusia, the Balearic Islands and Galicia. Also in attendance will be the leader of the opposition, Pablo Casado; the mayoress of Barcelona, Ada Colau; the secretary general of UGT, Pepe Álvarez; the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi; and leading figures from the Ibex 35 such as Pablo Isla (Inditex), Ana Botín (Banco Santander), José Ignacio Gorigolzarri (CaixaBank), José María Álvarez-Pallete (Telefónica) and Josu Jon Imaz (Repsol). The conference will be closed by the President of the Italian Council of Ministers and former President of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mario Draghi, who will be awarded by the institution with the 1st Cercle d’Economia Prize for European construction.
