AKIPRESS.COM - South Korea and China agreed to move beyond a year-long dispute over Seoul’s decision to deploy a U.S. missile shield, boosting stocks and paving the way for closer ties between two of Asia’s biggest economies, Bloomberg reported.

The nations agreed to restore bilateral relations to a “normal development path swiftly,” South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to meet South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam next month, Nam Gwan-pyo, a South Korean national security official, told reporters separately.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as Thaad, is designed to defend South Korea from an attack by North Korea.

While Moon initially called for a review of the deployment, his government backed the system as Kim Jong Un’s regime accelerated efforts to obtain the capability to hit the continental U.S. with a nuclear weapon.