SEOUL-- South Korea renewed calls for China's cooperation in improving exchanges of cultural content, including Korean games and movies, during annual bilateral working-level talks Thursday, the foreign ministry said.

Lee Mi-yon, the ministry's director general for bilateral economic affairs, and Yang Weiqun, director general for Asian affairs at China's commerce ministry, held the talks via video, amid lingering concerns about Beijing's perceived restrictions on Korean industries that followed Seoul's 2016 decision to host a U.S. anti-missile system.

During the talks, Lee asked Beijing to continue cooperation in supporting Korean game businesses striving to secure licenses for their services in China and Korean film distributors tapping into the Chinese market, the ministry said.

The two sides noted that the two countries have smoothly maintained cooperation despite the pandemic-driven global economic downturn and expressed expectations they can expand bilateral trade and investment, the ministry said.

They also agreed to continue communications on ways to enhance regional and multilateral economic cooperation through such platforms as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-plus-three meeting, which involves South Korea, China and Japan.

The working-level dialogue was launched in 1993 to discuss ways to deepen economic cooperation between Korea and China.

Source: Yonhap News Agency