South Korea signs free trade pact with ASEAN, excludes Thailand
Jakarta Post, 13 december 2005
South Korea signs free trade pact with ASEAN, excludes Thailand
KUALA LUMPUR (DPA): South Korea and Southeast Asian nations on Tuesday inked a tariff-slashing Free Trade Agreement (FTA), with Thailand choosing to be excluded from the pact which does not include rice in its list of items.
The agreement was signed by leaders from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) grouping, which includes Thailand, and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun at the sidelines of the annual ASEAN summit held in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur.
The FTA will cut import tariffs on around 4,000 items to below 20 percent and reduce them to zero by 2009.
Thailand, the world’s top rice exporter, has not agreed to joining the free trade pact with South Korea after numerous discussions failed to place rice on the tariff reduction list, said Thai government spokesman Surapong Suebwonglee.
"We are asking for the right of Thai rice to be exported to the Republic of Korea.
"Thailand is the world’s number one exporter of rice, so we cannot answer to our people why the FTA cannot include the rice trade," he told reporters Tuesday.
He said South Korean officials expressed concerns that including rice as one of the items would affect the livelihood of Korean farmers.
However, Surapong said his government was optimistic that ongoing discussions between the two countries would reach a "positive conclusion", adding that talks between officials would continue after the summit.
"We hope that our two countries can have a good conclusion, so we need time for more negotiations," he said.
ASEAN secretary-general Ong Keng Yong has said that some of the ASEAN members had been persuading South Korea to insert rice into discussions on the FTA.
"Of course, we prefer rice not to be excluded, we don’t want anything to be excluded. How can we have an FTA when too many things are excluded?" he said ahead of the signing.
The two-way trade between South Korea and ASEAN, which group Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, was worth US$18.50 billion in 2004.
