South Korea hosts APEC's first ministerial-level dialogue on anti-corruption
Seoul hailed the event as one positioning itself at the forefront of anti-corruption cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region last week.
'This meeting was a meaningful opportunity to lay the groundwork for practical anti-corruption cooperation within APEC and to strengthen the regional agenda,' Yu Chul-hwan, chairperson of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC), said in a press briefing Monday.
Held from July 30 to Friday in Incheon, the three-day event marked a turning point in APEC's anti-corruption agenda.
While the APEC's Anti-Corruption and Transparency Experts' Working Group has operated since 2005, this was the first time that either ministerial-level or vice ministerial-level officials from 20 member economies gathered alongside representatives from global institutions such as the OECD, World Bank and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
According to Yu, the event centered around three pillars: enforcement, corporate compliance and education.
In the first two sessions, participants from Chile, China, Interpol and the UNODC discussed cross-border cooperation in asset recovery and digital evidence sharing. Speakers from Korea, Indonesia, Russia, the OECD and Oracle explored how regulatory frameworks and digital solutions could reduce corruption risks in both public and private sectors.
The third session, dedicated to education, spotlighted Korea's leading role in preventive policy. The ACRC shared initiatives, including mandatory annual training for over 2 million civil servants and curriculum partnerships with 18 domestic universities. One such example is Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, which began offering a for-credit anti-corruption course this March.
Yu said that the ACRC also presented Korea's broader institutional reforms that led to the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act enacted in 2016, the Conflict of Interest Prevention Act introduced in 2022, and the Whistleblower Protection and Reward System, which has been operated by the commission since the early 2010s.
'We shared examples not just of enforcement, but of how to build a culture of integrity through prevention and participation,' said Yu, a ministerial-level figure.
This emphasis on cultivating a broad-based commitment to integrity was echoed by ACRC Vice Chair Lee Myung-soon, who urged member economies to treat transparency as a prerequisite for sustainable growth when he opened the plenary session on Thursday
'It is no longer the sole responsibility of anti-corruption agencies. This is a shared responsibility across sectors and generations,' said Lee of ACRC.
While the meeting concluded without a joint declaration, the ACRC confirmed that discussions are underway to include anti-corruption priorities in the APEC Leaders' Declaration, to be adopted at the APEC Summit in Gyeongju this October.
In 2024, South Korea ranked 30th out of 180 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, marking its highest to date.
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