S Korea to seek ’package’ free trade deal with US, trade minister says
The Hankyoreh | 8 Feb 07
S. Korea to seek ’package’ free trade deal with U.S., trade minister says
South Korea said Thursday it plans to make a "package deal" on antidumping rules, automobiles and other key pending issues in next week’s free trade talks with the United States.
The next round of Seoul-Washington free trade talks, the seventh since last June, is scheduled for Feb. 11-14 in Washington.
"The objective of the seventh round is to seek specific measures to make concessions on key issues by linking them with each other," Trade Minister Kim Hyun-jong said in a report to the National Assembly.
"By making as much concessions as possible, the government plans to lay the groundwork to sign an agreement in time," he said.
The sides have achieved "significant" progress in less sensitive areas but admitted that they still have wide gaps in some sensitive sectors, including U.S. anti-dumping rules and South Korea’s automobile and pharmaceutical markets.
The two sides agreed to resume stalled formal negotiations on these three pending issues in Washington, Kim said.
Negotiators are under time pressure.
Both sides must wrap up talks by April 2 because U.S. President George W. Bush’s so-called "fast-track" trade promotion authority expires July 1. The authority, which requires U.S. legislators to have 90 days to review a deal before they vote on it, allows Bush to submit the deal to Congress for a simple yea-or-nay vote without amendments.
A free trade agreement with South Korea would be the United States’ biggest commercial pact since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. Two-way trade reached US$74 billion in 2006.
In an unusual move ahead of next week’s talks, South Korea’s chief negotiator Kim Jong-hoon and Commerce Minister Kim Young-ju said their government are ready to make concessions on automobile and pharmaceuticals. Also ahead of the free trade talks, agriculture officials from both sides held two days of talks in Seoul earlier this week to try to resolve a trade spat over U.S. beef imports.
The row is over South Korea repeated rejection of U.S. beef shipments after bone chips were found in them in violation of a 2006 agreement under which South Korea agreed to buy only boneless meat after ending a three-year import ban prompted by a mad cow scare.
Although there is no official announcement about the degree of progress in the beef talks, South Korea’s agriculture officials said on Wednesday that their government may ease its quarantine rules on U.S. beef imports.
The agriculture ministry is scheduled to hold a press briefing on Friday morning to explain about the outcome of beef talks.
Before the 2003 import ban, South Korea was the United States’ third-largest beef market.
Seoul, Feb. 8 (Yonhap News)
