.jpg) Apologies for mistranslations: Minister of Trade Kim Jong-hoon, right, apologizes to the public during a briefing about translation mistakes in the Koreanlanguage version of the free trade agreement between the European Union and Korea at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in central Seoul, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Lee Ho-jae |
By Kim Tae-gyu
The Korean-language version of the free trade agreement (FTA) between the country and the European Union (EU) was found to have more than 200 mistranslation and typographical mistakes.
While apologizing for the large number of errors, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Monday that it would get to the bottom of the case in order to figure out who is responsible for them.
“We reviewed the Korean-language text to locate 207 blunders. We take them very seriously and apologize for generating worries,” Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon told a press conference.
“We lacked time to translate the free trade agreement and failed to get the reviews of outside experts, which led to the many miscues. Inspections are underway on the case and those who are accountable will be subject to disciplinary measures.”
Among the 207, translation mistakes amounted to 187 while the remaining 20 were typos.
Kim said that the ministry has already consulted with the EU to correct them.
“We plan to submit the revised version of the FTA to the National Assembly for ratification soon,” Kim said. “Our trade prospects are not that optimistic for this year due to the recent earthquakes in Japan and political upheavals in the Middle East. In this climate, we hope that the Korea-EU FTA will go into effect this July as scheduled.”
This is the third time that the Korean version of the Korea-EU pact has been overhauled due to mistranslations after it was signed last October.
The trade minister presented the ratification motion of the agreement last October to the unicameral parliament but withdrew it in the face of criticism that it was full of mistranslations.
It came up with the revised version late February for approval but retracted it once again in late March after further mistakes in translation were found.
If the Assembly does not give a nod to the trade deal this month, experts predict that it will not be able to be put into effect in July. By contrast, the European Parliament already gave the green light to it in February.
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