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| Former Minister of Trade Yeo Han-koo speaks during an interview with The Korea Times when he was serving in the position in December 2021. Korea Times file |
By Yi Whan-woo
Yeo Han-koo, Korea's former top negotiator on trade with partner countries, has been named as a standing senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), the U.S. think tank announced this week.
Yeo, 53, will be the first Korean to work as a standing fellow at PIIE.
A nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., PIIE is considered one of the world's most prestigious institutions on issues related to the global economy.
It has been served by numerous high-profile officials and scholars, both active and retired, from around the world. They include Fred Bergsten, a former assistant for international economic affairs to influential U.S. diplomatic figure Henry Kissinger, and Robert Lawrence, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.
From Korea, former Bank of Korea Governor Cho Soon and former Finance Minister Sakong Il worked at PIIE as visiting scholars.
Yeo was the minister of trade from August 2021 to May 2022 under then-President Moon Jae-in, and was responsible for negotiating free trade deals and other trade issues.
A former career bureaucrat, he also served as presidential secretary for Moon's signature New Southern and New Northern policies, which were aimed at expanding Korea's diplomatic maneuverings.
He built overseas experience at the International Finance Corp., a member of the World Bank Group, and as a minister counselor at the Korean Embassy in the U.S.
Yeo graduated from Seoul National University with a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1992. He passed the civil service examination for ranking bureaucrats the same year.
He later earned a master's degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a master's degree in business administration from Harvard Business School.
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