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Seoul, Riyadh Seek Cooperation in Startups, Biotechnology

Lee Young, South Korean Minister of SMEs and Startups - Hyunghwan Joo, former South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Lee Young, South Korean Minister of SMEs and Startups - Hyunghwan Joo, former South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Seoul, Riyadh Seek Cooperation in Startups, Biotechnology

Lee Young, South Korean Minister of SMEs and Startups - Hyunghwan Joo, former South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Lee Young, South Korean Minister of SMEs and Startups - Hyunghwan Joo, former South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Saudi Arabia and South Korea are working to develop a comprehensive strategic cooperation, especially in the field of petrochemicals, energy supply chains, and the exchange of expertise and technological industries, with Seoul expressing interest in more vital partnerships that would also cover biotechnology industries and startups.

Lee Young, South Korean Minister of SMEs and Startups, said that the two countries have started a new era of cooperation in the field of developing SMEs and startups and exchanging expertise.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, she noted that while the prosperity of the Middle East in the 1970s focused on construction, petrochemicals and factories, the next boom in the region would be based on new technologies such as Deep Tech.

“In the first half of the year, we will work to promote regulatory projects that depend on the speed of performance and implementation in foreign relations, such as dispatching trade delegations and helping small and medium-sized companies and startups, which are facing problems due to the complex crisis, to open export routes,” Young said.

The South Korean minister revealed that work was underway to transform 20 Korean SMEs operating in 12 countries into global business centers to serve as a major base for expansion abroad.

For his part, Hyunghwan Joo, former South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Korean companies were looking for opportunities for cooperation with Saudi Arabia.

Joo added that Saudi Arabia was able to establish a system based on ecosystem technology, pointing to the importance of the great efforts made by the health authorities in the Kingdom to promote biological, medical and health technology.

He also expressed his country’s interest to push joint cooperation forward in the field of vaccine manufacturing.

The former minister emphasized Saudi Arabia’s interest in health care and its efforts to maximize cooperation for the production of vaccines, as well as partnerships in the field of biological industries, research and related technologies.

He added that the Kingdom, by benefiting from the expertise of Korean companies, was expected to contribute strongly to filling the region’s need for vaccines and biological health-related products in the coming years.”

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China Unexpectedly Anoints New Trade Negotiator Amid US Tariff War 

Vendors work at vegetable stalls at a market in Beijing on April 16, 2025. (AFP)
Vendors work at vegetable stalls at a market in Beijing on April 16, 2025. (AFP)
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China Unexpectedly Anoints New Trade Negotiator Amid US Tariff War 

Vendors work at vegetable stalls at a market in Beijing on April 16, 2025. (AFP)
Vendors work at vegetable stalls at a market in Beijing on April 16, 2025. (AFP)

China on Wednesday unexpectedly appointed a new trade negotiator key in any talks to resolve the escalating tariff war with the US, replacing veteran trade tsar Wang Shouwen with its envoy to the World Trade Organization.

Li Chenggang, 58, a former assistant commerce minister during the first administration of US President Donald Trump, takes over from Wang, 59, the human resources and social security ministry said in a statement.

It was unclear if Wang, who assumed the No. 2 role at the commerce ministry in 2022, had taken up a post elsewhere. His name was no longer on the ministry's leadership team, according to the ministry's website as of Wednesday.

The ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the change, which was not explained in the human resources ministry's statement.

Wang was regarded as a tough negotiator and had clashed with US officials in previous meetings, said a source in Beijing's foreign business community.

"He's a bulldog, very intense," said the source, declining to be named.

The shift within the top leadership at the commerce ministry comes as Beijing pursues a hardline stance in an intensifying trade war with Washington triggered by Trump's steep tariffs on items imported from China.

The abrupt change also took place in the middle of President Xi Jinping's tour of Southeast Asia to consolidate economic and trading ties with close neighbors amid the standoff with the US.

Commerce Minister Wang Wentao was among senior officials flanking Xi on his visit to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia this week.

Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior advisor to the Conference Board's China Center said the change was "very abrupt and potentially disruptive" given how quickly trade tensions had escalated and in light of Wang's experience negotiating with the US since the first Trump administration.

"We can only speculate as to why this happened at this precise moment; but it might be that in the view of China's top leadership, given how tensions have continued escalating, they need someone else to break the impasse in which both countries find themselves and finally start negotiating," he said.

Unlike multiple other nations who have responded to Trump's plans for punitive tariffs by seeking bilateral deals with Washington, Beijing has raised its own levies on US goods in response and has not sought talks, which it says can only be conducted on the basis of mutual respect and equality.

Washington said on Tuesday that Trump was open to making a trade deal with China but Beijing should make the first move, insisting that China needed "our money".

'TARIFF SHOCKS'

At a February WTO meeting in Geneva, Li slammed the US for arbitrarily imposing tariffs on its trading partners, including China, warning that such moves have triggered "tariff shocks" to the world.

"The unilateralist approach of the US blatantly violates WTO rules, exacerbates economic uncertainty, disrupts global trade and may even subvert the rules-based multilateral trading system. China firmly opposes this and urges the United States to abolish its wrongful practices," he said.

Li, who has held several key jobs in the commerce ministry, such as in departments overseeing treaties and law and fair trade, has an academic background in the elite Peking University and Germany's Hamburg University.

"Judging by his CV, Li is a typical Chinese technocrat with extensive experience in working on trade issues at the commerce ministry as well as at the WTO," said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the National University of Singapore.

"It seems like a routine promotion with nothing abnormal, but now is obviously a sensitive period due to US-China tensions."

On March 31, Li attended a Chinese private entrepreneurs forum as a "leader" of the commerce ministry, according to a state media readout of the meeting, one of the first official hints of an impending move to a new role.