South Korea will sign a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) this week with
Colombia, the fourth-largest economy in Latin America, the Seoul government said
Monday.
The agreement will be signed Thursday at Seoul's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade, the ministry said. It will be South Korea's 10th free
trade deal.
"The agreement will officially be signed this week as the
countries completed taking necessary measures, such as a review by their
respective offices of legislation and Cabinet, following a declaration to
conclude the negotiations by the heads of the two states in June last year," the
trade ministry said.
Colombia has so far signed 12 bilateral and
multilateral trade deals with 59 countries, but South Korea will be the first
Asian country to ink a free trade deal with the Latin American nation.
Colombia currently has the third-largest market in Latin America with a
population of 46 million. The resource-rich country is also said to have some
1.9 billion barrels of oil in deposit and about 100 billion cubic meters of
natural gas.
South Korea's bilateral trade with Colombia more than
doubled in just three years from US$920 million in 2009 to $1.89 billion last
year with $1.47 billion worth of South Korean products shipped to Colombia in
2012, according to the trade ministry.
The South Korea-Colombia FTA
will remove import tariffs on 96.1 percent of South Korean goods shipped to
Colombia and 96.7 percent of products shipped here from the Latin American
country. A total of 151 products, mostly farm products, including South Korea's
staple grain, rice, have been excluded from the list of items subject to tariff
exemption.
Once signed, the free trade agreement will be submitted to
the countries' respective legislatures for approval before it can be
implemented.
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