Seoul and Beijing sign "historic" free trade agreement
Seoul (AsiaNews) – The Trade ministers of China and South Korea on Monday formally signed (pictured) a free trade agreement that would reduce tariffs by 90 per cent over the next 20 years. The pact – largely agreed in November – was recently finalised.
China is South Korea's top trading partner as well as tis biggest export market. Last month, South Korea overtook Japan as the largest foreign investor in China, with US$ 1.6 billion in the first quarter of 2015.
Two-way trade between Asia’s first (China) and fourth (South Korea) economies stood at around 5.3 billion in 2014.
In a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, South Korean President Park Geun-Hye called the accord a "historic milestone" that would boost relations between the two countries.
"The Korea-China FTA will . . . take the bilateral ties that had been built over the years to a whole new level," Ms Park said in the letter delivered to the visiting Chinese Trade Minister Gao Hucheng.
Pending mandatory parliamentary approval, the FTA will allow small and medium-sized South Korean firms greater access to China's vast consumer market and help create more than 50,000 jobs in the South, Seoul's Trade Ministry said.
"In particular, exports of consumer goods in fashion, cosmetics, home appliances and high-end food products will increase greatly," it said in a statement.
The agreement will remove tariffs on 71 per cent of South Korean exports to China in 10 years and 91 per cent in 20 years.
Seoul will in return remove tariffs on 79 per cent of Chinese imports in 10 years and 92 per cent in 20 years.
Negotiations for the agreement, which began in May 2012, were often marred by angry protests by South Korean farmers, fearful of an influx of cheap Chinese imports.
The final pact excluded many of South Korea's main farming and fisheries goods.
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