Monday, February 28, 2005

ROK AND ASEAN AGREE TO FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

According to the Korea Herald
Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed to conclude a fair-trade agreement on goods by the end of 2005 at the first round of negotiations held last week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

During the first formal talks between Korea and ASEAN held Feb. 23-25 in Jakarta, trade officials from both sides agreed to eliminate tariffs on at least 80 percent of all goods by 2009 through trade negotiations.

I wonder if rice and other agricultural products will be included in the 80% of goods not subject to tariffs.

I also wonder whether there is any effort to seek a FTA with Taiwan. Such an agreement would make good economic sense (as long as one assumes FTAs to be generally good) but the political cost of angering the PRC probably would make such an agreement impossible.

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