Jung In-kyo, Director General of Trade Negotiations, "FTA Comprehensive Support Center Must Strengthen Proactive Response and Support Functions for Changing Trade Environment"

Visit to the FTA Comprehensive Support Center

Jung In-kyo, Head of the Trade Negotiations Division at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, requested on the 16th that the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Comprehensive Support Center take a more proactive role in preemptively responding to changes in the domestic and international trade environment and strengthening its comprehensive support functions for trade difficulties.

On the same day, Jung visited the FTA Comprehensive Support Center located in the Trade Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and said, "As global price competition intensifies, companies' utilization rate of FTA for exports is increasing, and with the growing number of FTA agreements making their application more complex, the support provided by the Comprehensive Support Center for FTA utilization also needs to be deepened."

Jin In-gyo, Director General for Trade Negotiations, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Photo by Yongjun Cho jun21@

The FTA Comprehensive Support Center is a public-private joint organization launched in 2012 and is organized within the Korea International Trade Association. It is responsible for support projects such as counseling, consulting, education, briefings, and promotion aimed at strengthening export competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises through FTA utilization.

Jung said, "As one of the people who contributed to the establishment of the FTA Comprehensive Support Center, I feel deeply moved to visit again today after more than 10 years," adding, "From its early days contributing to the establishment of the FTA system to the present, the FTA Comprehensive Support Center has contributed to increasing exports of our companies through support for small and medium-sized enterprises' FTA utilization."

The FTA Comprehensive Support Center plans to strengthen its corporate support functions by providing information and resolving difficulties related to recent FTA utilization issues such as overlapping agreement application and cumulative origin application, as well as major recent trade issues including the European Union (EU)'s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, supply chain challenges, and export regulations.