South Korea and Turkey have reached a de facto agreement for free trade in investment and services, which brings them closer to closing a deal for a full-fledged FTA, the Trade Ministry here said Monday.
“At the seventh round of negotiations, the two sides reached a de facto agreement after narrowing their differences on the text of the FTA in the areas of service and investment,” Assistant Trade Minister Woo Tae-hee said at a press briefing held at the ministry headquarters in Sejong City.
The two sides are aiming to ink the final agreement during the first half of 2015, according to Trade Ministry officials.
Once implemented, the agreement will mark Turkey’s first-ever free trade pact in the service and investment sector, Woo said.
Turkey has so far signed 17 FTAs that deal only with products. With Korea, the country has previously signed agreements on a basic framework and for products that went into effect in May 2013. The agreement on investment and services forms the final leg of the free trade agreement.
Negotiations for the FTA in the investment and service sectors resumed in August 2013 after a 17-month suspension due to what ministry officials called “remaining differences.”
“We believe the service and investment FTA will help expand economic relations between South Korea and Turkey by upgrading the South Korea-Turkey FTA, which is limited to products, to a comprehensive, high-level FTA,” the ministry said in a press release.
Woo said the country’s bilateral trade with Turkey jumped over 30 percent to about $6.3 billion in 12 months following the implementation of the products FTA in May 2013.
“The countries’ annual bilateral trade in the service sector currently stands at about $740 million. The service and investment FTA is expected to help greatly expand the countries’ bilateral trade in the service sector,” he said.
The assistant minister said the countries would seek to initial the proposed agreement before the end of the year for an official signing within the first half of next year.
By Bae Ji-sook and news reports (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)
