SEOUL, May 11: South Korea and the European Union concluded their first round of free trade negotiations on Friday, with both sides saying the talks took place in a positive mood and expressing the hope a deal can be concluded promptly.
“I believe that as the first round of negotiations this round was highly successful,” Kim Han-soo, Seoul's chief negotiator, told reporters. He added that the two sides “built up a substantial level of mutual trust between the negotiators.”A draft text on tariff concessions would be exchanged by the end of June, with a second round of talks starting July 16 in Brussels.
No sectoral agreements were announced, but Kim said negotiators agreed to work towards liberalising at least 95 per cent of tariffs on goods within 10 years of an agreement taking effect.
“The two sides will aim to achieve complete liberalisation within this timeframe for industrial goods,” he said.
Ignacio Garcia Bercero, the EU's chief negotiator, echoed Kim, calling the week “very constructive.” He added, however, that the 95 per cent target “should only be seen as an indication of a minimum level of ambition.”
Kim and Garcia Bercero, along with their respective teams, began the talks on Monday at a Seoul hotel.
The EU and South Korea did nearly $80 billion (euro59.4 billion) of trade last year. The EU is South Korea's second-biggest trading partner after China.
South Korea is the EU's eighth-largest trading partner, while the EU is the biggest foreign investor in South Korea.
If successful, an EU free trade deal would be South Korea's biggest, exceeding an agreement forged last month with the US after 10 months of contentious negotiations.—Agencies
