Relations between China and South Korea have gone through ups-and-downs. CGTN's Joseph Kim has sat down with an official at a government trade agency in South Korea. He shared with us his thoughts on this.

CHANG SANG-HAE, DIRECTOR KOTRA'S MARKET RESEARCH TEAM "Currently, looking at trade and investment, the two countries have a very close relationship. The trade volume has reached $2.4 billion dollars and is growing, while there have been more than 1 million private exchanges through travel and tourism. You can see China and South Korea are more than close friends. In terms of trade, there's been a great deal of change, not only in the relationship, but also in patterns. Normally in the past, it was a manufacturing partnership where Korean companies worked with regions in China for production. That involved cities such as Qingdao, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other inland areas. This has been the case but with China's fast development, its economy has also shifted to focus on consumption, and so Korean companies have been looking at China's domestic demand, trying to expand into the local market and find patterns there. So it's no longer a manufacturing relationship, but South Korea is now trying better to understand the Chinese market and meet local demands, hoping to continue to expand and cooperate with China in that way."