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South Korea's exports of tariff-cut products to the European Union (EU) have
acted as bulwarks for the country's weakening trade since the implementation of
a bilateral free trade deal amid the region's deepening debt crisis, a report
showed Wednesday.
According to the report by the Korea International
Trade Association (KITA), shipments of tariff-lowered South Korean products to
the world's single largest economic bloc jumped 16.5 percent on-year in the
July-March period. The Seoul-Brussels free trade agreement (FTA) went into
effect on July 1 last year.
Exports of other goods not subject to
tariff cuts slumped 22.1 percent on-year over the cited period, however, as the
region suffered an economic slump, it added.
Shipments of jet fuel,
gearboxes and petrochemical products surged more than 10-fold over the cited
period as such products benefited from the lowered tariffs under the trade pact,
it said.
However, the EU's overall imports from South Korea dropped
3.6 percent on-year during the nine-month period in the midst of the region's
escalating debt woes, the report said.
The KITA report also showed
that the EU's investment in South Korea soared 60.5 percent on-year to reach
US$3.57 billion during the July-March period, compared with a 48.8 percent
plunge in the same period a year before.