South Korea Free Trade Agreement With The European Union

With the stagnation of the WTO negotiations, free trade agreements (hereinafter referred to FTA for short) developed like mushrooms after rain. South Korea adhered to the policy of economic development as a trade nation and regarded the FTA negotiations as an important strategy for the development of foreign trade. Since2007, after eight rounds of negotiations for four years, the EU-South Korea FTA came into effect on July1,2011. And South Korea became the first Asian country to sign an FTA with the EU.Accordingly, the EU-South Korea FTA is the most comprehensive free trade agreement ever negotiated by the EU. Import duties are eliminated on nearly all products and there is far-reaching liberalisation of trade in services covering all modes of supply. It includes provisions on investments both in services and industrial sectors, strong disciplines in important areassuch as the protection of intellectual property, public procurement,competition rules, transparency of regulation and sustainable development.The EU-South Korea FTA had a far-reaching impact on both the South Korea and the EU. On the economy, they accelerated their FTA strategy implementation by a series of moves, decreasing the tariffs, reducing their commodity production costs, enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises, increasing the domestic employment and promoting the economic and trade exchanges. On the politics, economic cooperation lead the establishment of the bilateral strategic partnership and played an important role in improving the international competitive power and influence and influence of South Korea.In addition, the EU-South Korea FTA provided an important revelation to the strategy development of China’s FTA. It promoted the process of China’s FTA negotiations with other countries to improve the competitiveness of enterprises and enlarge the foreign trade. Meanwhile it encouraged China to implement the strategy of going outside and cooperation with neighboring countries to achieve mutual benefit and win-win.