S. Korean president calls for cooperating with DPRK to create peace economy amid trade row with Japan

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday called for creating a peace-driven economy through cooperation with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) during a meeting with his senior secretaries.

The appeal was made after Japan's removal of South Korea last week from its whitelist of trusted trading partners that are given preferential treatment for export, according to the presidential Blue House.

South Korean people hold placards and call for a boycott of Japanese products during an anti-Japan rally in Seoul, South Korea, July 26, 2019. [Photo: Yonhap News via IC]

"The recent incident reaffirmed our sense of the urgent need to create a peace-driven economy. Japan's economy holds advantages over the (South) Korean economy in terms of the size of its economy and the domestic market," Moon said.

"The realization of a peace economy through inter-Korean economic cooperation will allow us to immediately catch up with Japan's advantages," the president noted.

Moon said his government will not languish in pessimism or give up on the peace economy because of fluctuations in the inter-Korean and the DPRK-U.S. relations.

"When the two Koreas make concerted efforts with the confidence that peace economy will open up a unique future of opportunities for us, we will be able to achieve denuclearization and ensuing peace on the Korean Peninsula and bring about common prosperity upon this foundation," Moon noted.

Criticizing Japan for its export restriction, Moon said Japan undermined the free trade order.

Japan's export curbs came in protest against the South Korean top court's rulings that ordered some of Japanese companies to compensate the South Korean victims who were forced into hard labor without pay during the 1910-45 Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

Moon vowed to turn the current situation into an opportunity to build a springboard for the South Korean economy to reach a new level through innovative growth and the homegrown development of industrial parts and materials.