Serbia Moves Closer To WTO With South Korea Bilateral Agreement

Serbia signed a trade deal with South Korea today, its latest bilateral accord with a member of the World Trade Organization, which it hopes to join next year.

After two years of negotiations, Serbia and South Korea reached the agreement to eliminate or lower trade barriers on some 2,000 agricultural and industrial products, with the Asian country “giving up some of the demands” after the Serbian side insisted that a full liberalization would hurt its economy, Serbia’s Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic said.

Representatives of Daewoo International Corp., Korea Electric Power Corp., Histeel Co Ltd., Hanil Iron & Steel Co Ltd. and Hwaseung R&A Co. attended the signing in Belgrade, exploring investment opportunities in the Balkan country after South Korea’s YURA Corp. opened an auto parts plant in central Serbia earlier this year and plans to develop another one.

Serbia’s application for WTO membership began in 2005, running parallel with its efforts to join the European Union. So far, it has completed multilateral negotiations and signed separate accords with Japan, Norway and Honduras.

It needs to finalize several more bilateral deals, including with the EU, U.S., Brazil, Canada, Switzerland and Ukraine before it can join the organization.

Dinkic said he saw no obstacles for wrapping up the remaining negotiations in the coming months, “except, perhaps, with Ukraine, which has high demands for every (applicant) country, not just for Serbia.”

Dec 9, 2010

By Misha Savic

Source: bloomberg.com

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