Seoul, Washington to increase financial sanctions against NK

South Korea and the US agreed to enhance financial sanctions against North Korea amid concerns over Pyongyang’s latest ballistic missile test, the Finance Ministry in Seoul said Thursday.

South Korea’s Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held their first phone call Thursday since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. They promised the two countries would more thoroughly implement UN Security Council sanctions as well as their own sanctions against the reclusive state, the ministry said.

After reaffirming the close economic relationship between South Korea and the US, Yoo and Mnuchin agreed that they would further the discussions in the upcoming meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Germany later this month.

“Yoo expressed hope the two governments could deepen their close policy coordination and promised that the South Korean government would actively communicate with the US,” the ministry said in a statement.

“In reply, Mnuchin said the US would also cooperate in various sectors through bilateral, regional and global platforms.”

The phone call lasted about 16 minutes, but the two did not discuss the issue of the possibility of South Korea being labeled as a currency manipulator by the Treasury, Yonhap Infomax reported quoting Song In-chang, deputy finance minister for international affairs, as saying.

Earlier last year, Yoo had flatly denied the possibility raised by a think tank report that said the new US administration might put China and South Korea on its manipulator list in April.

The US Treasury Department names a country a currency manipulator if three criteria are met: the country has more than $2 billion of trade surplus with the US; the current account surplus exceeds 3 percent of its gross domestic product; and the country is suspected of having intervened to artificially weaken its currency.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)