With the Republic of Korea due to host the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting this week, followed by China next year, officials, scholars and business leaders have voiced high hopes that the success of both events will boost the region's free trade, growth and governance.

The ROK's southeastern city of Gyeongju — once the capital of the ancient Silla Dynasty on the Korean Peninsula — will host the annual meeting on Friday and Saturday, which will focus on areas such as sustainability, digital transformation and trade cooperation.

Park Jang-ho, director of the APEC Preparation and Support Office, said Gyeongju was chosen as the host city because of its cultural and historical strengths as well as its hotels and exhibition facilities.

The ROK is expected to present its strengths in cutting-edge technologies, and "executives of many leading enterprises in APEC member economies, such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, will attend the relevant APEC events", he told China Daily. Park said China and the ROK enjoy a profound history of exchanges, adding that the ROK attaches "great importance "to China.

"It will be greatly significant to have the APEC meeting convened in Gyeongju, and as China will take over the APEC presidency next year, the interactions between the two countries will be even more frequent, giving a further boost to bilateral ties," he said.

The two nations have seen a slew of important official and subnational exchanges in recent months covering key topics including APEC and bilateral cooperation.

During a phone conversation with his ROK counterpart Cho Hyun on Oct 7, Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed hope that the two sides will support each other and "further build consensus among various parties".

The two countries are expected to strengthen solidarity and cooperation, safeguard the international trading system, uphold the concept of multilateralism, advance the process of building a free trade area in the Asia-Pacific region, and make positive efforts toward building an Asia-Pacific community, he added.