7th FTA talks with EU start in Belgium today
Korea Times
7th FTA Talks With EU Start in Belgium Today
By Kim Hyun-cheol, Staff Reporter
11 May 2008
Delegations from South Korea and the European Union will get together for a new round of the free trade agreement (FTA) talks starting today in Brussels, Belgium.
The seventh round of the FTA negotiations, which will deal with issues like Korea’s request on simplification of the rules of origin and liberalization in some service sectors in South Korea will continue through Thursday.
However, some issues such as industrial tariffs liberalization and standards and certification in businesses will still be off the table as in the previous talks in January.
During the latest session, both parties agreed on some major issues like sustainable development, antitrust and merger aspects of competition policy, transparency of domestic regulation, bilateral mediation and bilateral dispute settlement mechanisms.
The EU and South Korea picked Brussels as the venue for the talks at a recent meeting in Tokyo, Japan, last month between EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon.
The trade talks started in May last year, when the two sides met in Seoul.
The EU said prior to the negotiations that it is committed to achieving a comprehensive, highly ambitious and balanced agreement in line with what the EU Commission has set out in the Global Europe trade strategy, while South Korea aims to set the ground for the agreement this time.
"It’s our goal to set up the frame (to reach the agreement)," said Lee Hye-min, head of the Korean delegation, Friday.
The EU is South Korea’s second largest export destination after China and Korea is the EU’s fourth largest non-European trading partner. The EU remains the largest foreign investor in Korea ahead of the United States, Japan and China. EU-Korea trade exceeded 64 billion euros in 2007.
South Korea has long viewed the EU as a possible FTA partner, since the country selected EU as a long-term partner along with the United States and China in its FTA roadmap in August 2008.
