Putin describes South Korea as "key partner country"

SEOUL, June 29 (MENA) - Russian President Vladimir Putin described South Korea as a "key partner country" during his meeting on Saturday with President Moon Jae-in.

Moon and Putin had the talks in Osaka, Japan, where they were on a visit to attend the Group of 20 summit, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Moon agreed that exchanges between the two sides are on the steady rise in various sectors.

He pointed out that the two-way trade volume jumped 31 percent in 2018 from the previous year and the number of visitors to each other hit the all-time high of nearly 700,000.

Seoul and Moscow set a goal of increasing two-way trade volume to US$30 billion by 2020 from $24.8 billion in 2018. They also aim to expand the number of visitors to each other's country to up to one million next year from 695,000 last year.