SEOUL, June 11 – South Korean President Park Geun-hye (photo) promised Monday to provide continued support for the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an international organisation launched under her predecessor to help developing nations fight climate change and seek environment-friendly growth, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
Park made the commitment during a meeting with Lars Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who has been serving as the GGGI’s chairman, according to presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing. Rasmussen was in South Korea for an annual global green growth summit that kicked off two days of meetings earlier Monday.
Under Park’s predecessor, former President Lee Myung-bak, South Korea founded GGGI in 2010 as a think-tank charged with developing strategies for the new growth paradigm that calls for fostering “green” technologies and fighting global warming as a fresh engine of economic growth.
The GGGI was officially transformed into an international organisation last October.
“President Park stated that our government will provide continued support for GGGI so that it can take firm root as an international organisation and play the role of helping developing countries respond to climate change,” the spokeswoman said in a statement.
Park suggested that the GGGI considers employing South Korea’s “Saemaul” or new community movement, a government-led campaign launched in the 1970s to modernise its rural areas under her father, then-President Park Chung-hee, as a strategy to help developing nations.
Rasmussen said the organisation will try to spread the campaign to developing countries.
-BERNAMA
