New Zealand Presses For FTA With South Korea

New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key pushed for completion of his country's free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, during talks in Seoul on July 26 with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

He said that he had "made the President aware of the importance we place on getting an agreement in place so that New Zealand companies can compete on an equal footing in the Korean marketplace with the United States and other countries with which South Korea has concluded FTAs."

While the FTA talks had begun in 2009, they had then stalled the following year after four rounds of negotiations, largely due to the sensitive subject of tariffs on agricultural products. Key is now reported to have indicated that negotiations will be restarted in October this year.

Total trade between the two countries is around NZD3.5bn (USD2.8bn), so that South Korea is New Zealand's fifth-largest trading partner, but New Zealand's share of the South Korean market has been decreasing.

Previously, Key had pointed out that "as we both move to provide preferential access to other countries through bilateral and regional trade agreements, our exporters are each becoming relatively less competitive in each other's markets. We need to address this. As New Zealand and South Korea negotiate FTAs with a wider range of countries, this trend is only going to accelerate."

July 29, 2013

Source: Tax News