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Negotiations to improve the Korea-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which came into effect in 2007, have officially begun in earnest. The discussions are expected to focus on updating the FTA to incorporate new trade rules related to digital trade, supply chains, and critical minerals.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that the first Joint Committee for the improvement of the Korea-ASEAN FTA was held virtually on April 8.
The Korean delegation was led by Park Geun-oh, Director-General for FTA Policy, while the ASEAN delegation was headed by Alphana Roy, Director at Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry. Around 40 representatives from both sides participated in the meeting.
The Korea-ASEAN FTA, Korea’s fourth FTA, has played a key role in expanding trade and investment between the two sides since its entry into force in 2007. However, opinions have been raised that the agreement, which is mainly focused on market opening for goods and services, has limitations in fully reflecting the latest global trade norms, such as those related to digital trade, supply chains, and critical minerals. In response, both sides officially declared their intention to launch improvement negotiations at the Korea-ASEAN Summit held in October last year.
At this Joint Committee meeting, in preparation for the full-fledged working group-level negotiations scheduled for June this year, the two sides intensively discussed the basic framework for future negotiations, including the Joint Committee’s operating rules, the structure of the negotiating subcommittees, and guidelines for their operation.
Director-General Park stated, "The global trade environment is becoming increasingly uncertain due to the recent spread of protectionism and rising instability in supply chains. We plan to focus our negotiation capacity on introducing new trade rules in areas such as digital trade, supply chains, and critical minerals to support future innovative industries like artificial intelligence (AI) and electric vehicles."
Source: TheAsiaBusinessDaily
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