By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
South Korea hopes to finalize its free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU) in April, the Ministry of Trade and Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.
Lee Hye-min, chief negotiator of the Korean trade delegation, will meet with his EU counterpart Ignacio Garcia Bercero in Paris Friday for talks. At the meeting, both sides are expected to confirm minor amendments to the tentative agreement.
Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon will also have talks with Karel de Gucht, EU trade commissioner, to finalize the pact.
Whether to sign the deal in April will be the main agenda item in the talks, Lee said.
"We expect to confirm the time and the place for the FTA finalization, but it also depends on the related schedule of the EU Commission meetings," he added.
Korea and the EU agreed last year to conclude talks on signing the trade agreement, and implement it as early as possible, during President Lee Myung-bak's visit to Europe. They initialed the deal last October, three months after concluding negotiations.
The amendments include several areas such as the auto industry, which both sides have held rounds of talks on to narrow their differences.
In regards to mid- to large-sized sedans, one of Korea's key exports, tariffs will be asymmetrically reduced. They will be cut down by a bigger rate in the initial year, before they are terminated in three years.
Reflecting the Treaty of Lisbon, which was signed by the EU member nations last December, Korea and the EU also agreed to modify some of the technical terms in the draft of the agreement, including the change of the phrase "European Community" into "European Union."
Once signed, the deal is expected to boost bilateral trade by 20 percent, according to the state-run Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
The 27-nation economic bloc was South Korea's second-largest trading partner following China in 2008, with $98.4 billion in two-way trade.
The EU was also the biggest foreign investor in South Korea with $44.8 billion.