WASHINGTON, March 21: US negotiators must secure greater market access for US automobiles, rice and beef in South Korea before Congress will accept a trade deal between the two countries, lawmakers warned on Tuesday.

“The US-Korea free trade agreement is a key test of the approach we take to trade policy,” Rep. Sander Levin, Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, said in a hearing on a deal that would be the biggest for Washington in 15 years.

Negotiators have been rushing to conclude talks on the pact to meet a month-end deadline for notifying Congress of their intent to sign a deal.

South Korean negotiator Kim Jong-hoon has been meeting in Washington this week with his US counterpart, Wendy Cutler, to work through remaining divisions in the talks.

Cutler will then accompany Deputy US Trade Representative Karan Bhatia to Seoul this weekend for 11th-hour talks.

“There is strong commitment on both sides to work hard in the time remaining,” Bhatia told lawmakers in the hearing.

Officials estimate a deal could add up to $43 billion to the US economy.

Negotiators have already agreed on government procurement, customs and competition provisions, but major divisions remain — automobiles and farm goods like rice and fruit.

In a related effort, Washington's chief US agricultural negotiator Richard Crowder is in Seoul this week trying to work out some of those issues.

Crowder is also looking for an end to a stubborn dispute over beef trade that, while not formally part of the agreement, would jeopardise the deal's chances in Congress if unresolved.

Since late last year, Korean officials have rejected a series of US beef shipments containing trace bone chips, angering US beef producers who had been hoping to resume beef exports after mad cow disease halted trade for several years.

South Korea has also been angling to keep rice out of the deal, a stance which US negotiators say will not fly.

US rice sales to Korea are limited by a quota system that kept lower-tariff imports to around 50,000 tons in 2005.

The Bush administration must notify Congress by the end of March of its intent to sign the pact to submit it for approval under a negotiating authority that expires this June.

For some lawmakers, dramatically expanding access for US automakers is key. In 2006, South Korea sold 700,000 cars to US consumers; the United States sold Korea just 4,000.

Earlier this month, Levin and other lawmakers put forward their own plan for increasing US auto sales to Korea, saying US negotiators weren't doing enough to secure needed access.—Reuters