[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The 5th official negotiation of the Korea-Chile Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will be held online from the 22nd to the 24th.
On the Korean side, Lee Kyung-sik, the chief negotiator of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's Free Trade Agreement Negotiation Office, will lead a government delegation of about 40 members from 16 ministries including the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Ministry of Economy and Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Employment and Labor, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, and the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.
The Chilean side will be led by Felipe Lopeandia, Director of Bilateral Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with a delegation composed of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance.
The Korea-Chile FTA, which came into effect in 2004, is the first FTA concluded by South Korea. Since the first improvement negotiation started in November 2018, a total of four rounds of negotiations have been held. Despite the COVID-19 situation, to maintain negotiation momentum, the 4th round of negotiations and onward have been conducted online.
In the 5th negotiation, both sides plan to discuss nine areas including goods, intellectual property rights, trade facilitation, anti-corruption, labor, environment, gender equality, legal review, and digital economy. In particular, to promote the newly emerging digital trade, a digital economy division has been established to begin discussions on related norms.
Through this negotiation, the Korean side plans to lay the groundwork for concluding the talks by accelerating discussions on product tariff concessions as well as introducing new trade norms such as environment, anti-corruption, and gender equality, and upgrading existing norms including trade facilitation and intellectual property rights.
Lee Kyung-sik, the FTA negotiator, said, "Through close consultations with the Chilean side, we will raise the level of trade norms under the Korea-Chile FTA, improve conditions for entry into the Chilean and South American markets, and make our best efforts to simultaneously promote both quantitative expansion and qualitative advancement of the FTA network."
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