国际英语新闻：G20 summit spokesperson says Seoul ready for leaders, media

SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- G20 Seoul Summit spokesperson, Sohn Jie-Ae, said Tuesday host South Korea was ready for world leaders and 2,000 to 3,000 journalists around the world expected to gather in Seoul.

"I think we are ready. If we are not ready now, we will never be," a laughing Sohn told Xinhua in an interview.

A huge media center has already been opened to service earlier in the day at the city's Convention and Exhibition Center, the main venue of the G20 meeting, which would start on Thursday.

The media center was divided into two parts -- Main Press Center with about 1,300 seats and the International Broadcasting Center, where more than 130 broadcasting booths had been set up.

Sohn said more than 4,000 media persons from 63 countries and regions had registered to cover the Seoul Summit, and she expected 2,000 to 3,000 of them to come to Seoul.

Among the 4,000 journalists, slight more than half was South Korean while the other half was from international media. It was the largest number of journalists that gathered in South Korea for any event, and probably the largest for any G20 summit as well, she said.

Sohn also said the host would also have the largest Chinese media delegation and the number is actually bigger than expected.

"We are surprised and pleased at the amount of figure and interest that the Chinese media have shown to the Seoul Summit... which is probably reflective of economic issues that are now foremost very interesting to the world's leaders and readers and viewer," she said.

The G20 group, one of the most important economic bodies, is to hold its fifth summit in Seoul, South Korea, since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Sohn also said during the summit there would be many bilateral meetings, among which the U.S.-Chinese meeting would, as always, draw most interests.

While for South Korea's domestic media, they would pay most attention to the meeting between South Korean and U.S. presidents, who might announce the final agreement on the free-trade pact between the two countries at a following press conference, Sohn added.