SEOUL, June 10 (Yonhap) — South Korean President Park Geun-hye promised Monday to provide continued support for the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an international organization launched under her predecessor to help developing countries fight climate change and seek environment friendly growth.

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 organization last October.

“President Park stated that our government will provide continued support for GGGI so that it can take firm root as an international organization 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 modernize its rural areas under her father, then-President Park Chung-hee, as a strategy to help developing nations.

Rasmussen said the organization will try to spread the campaign to developing countries.

Park also expressed gratitude for Denmark’s support for South Korea to win permanent observer status on the Arctic Council and hoped that the two countries will expand cooperation in Arctic-related projects, according to the spokeswoman.

jschang@yna.co.kr
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Original article from Yonhap News here