South Korea has appointed Lee Eun-ho, the most recent president of the Korean Security Agency of Trade and Industry, as the country’s top representative to Taiwan, a source said yesterday.
Lee would assume office in Taipei on Monday next week, the source said.
Lee is to replace South Korean Representative to Taiwan Chung Byung-won, who held the position since December 2021.
Photo: Screen grab from Korean Security Agency of Trade and Industry web site
It is the first time South Korea has appointed an envoy to Taiwan from the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) instead of from the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as had been the convention since 1992.
Lee is also the first top South Korean envoy to Taiwan named by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May last year.
Born in 1961, Lee received master’s and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering at Seoul National University before receiving a doctorate in the same field at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US.
He started his public service as the director of MOCIE’s international standard division, and then of its e-business policy division, before he was posted to the South Korean embassy in Vietnam and in the United Arab Emirates.
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