South Korea has initialed the bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with Canada, according to a statement released by the nation’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE).

The Korean government’s deputy trade minister Choi Gyung-lim and his Canadian counterpart lan Burney initialed the FTA in Seoul on the previous day and agreed to formally sign the deal in the second half of this year.

The two nations announced the conclusion of their trade deal negotiations in March, eight years and eight months after the talks began. The FTA is expected to take effect next year if the trade pact is officially signed and ratified by the Korean National Assembly without delays in the process.

The two partners agreed to remove tariffs on most of their trade products by uniformly cutting back on them every year within 10 years after the FTA goes into effect. They also compromised by
agreeing to abolish tariffs on 97.5 percent of their trade products based on the number of trade items.

Under the trade pact, Korea is expected to enjoy an advantage in industrial products such as automobiles, and Canada will gain regarding livestock such as beef by opening up the market. Canada agreed to gradually lift the current 6.1 percent tariff on imported cars from Korea that account for 42.8 percent of Korea’s total exports to

Canada and are valued at $2.2 billion, upon the effectuation of the pact, and scrap 100 percent of the tariff two years later. Tariffs on Korea’s home appliances are set to be lifted either immediately or three years after the deal takes effect, depending on electronics products.

 
 
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