“The Korea-China FTA Will Bring New Opportunities to Trading Circles”
-KITA held CEO Breakfast Meeting by Inviting Assistant Trade Minister Woo Tae-hee of MOTIE-
The Korea International Trade Association (Chairman, Kim In-ho) held the 93rd KITA CEO Breakfast Meeting at COEX Intercontinental Hotel in Samseong-dong on March 27, by inviting Assistant Trade Minister Woo Tae-hee of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) who led the Korean delegation for the Korea-China FTA negotiation. 250 participants including CEOs, executives and employees in trading businesses attended the event early in the morning representing high interest in the Korea-China FTA, which is a hot issue in trading circle these days.
Assistant Trade Minister Woo Tae-hee made a speech on the topic of “The Outcomes of the Korea-China FTA Negotiation and the Future Plans”. He stressed that the FTA would bring new opportunities to Korean trading businesses by saying “With the Korea-China FTA, Korea has secured its status as the FTA hub country by completing the FTAs with the world’s three largest economies”.
Mr. Woo introduced the major achievements of the Korea-China FTA. He stated that by reflecting Korea’s concerns about opening agriculture, fisheries and livestock markets, rice was not included on the list of items for the negotiation. He also mentioned that Korea has secured the base to enter into Chinese market through the liberalization of China’s agriculture and fisheries markets by excluding most items of agriculture, fisheries and livestock from the concessions. In addition, he forecasted that it would be an opportunity to turn Korea’s major export items from intermediary goods-oriented to consumer goods-oriented by obtaining a foothold to enter into Chinese domestic market.
In particular, as Korea’s service industries will have more opportunities to expand their businesses to China, Korea has prepared the institutional foundation for Korean companies to make inroads into China’s promising service sector by agreeing to switch to a negative list approach via the follow-up talks in terms of the service and investment liberalization.
Finally, he shared the practical achievements of the Korea-China FTA, such as relaxing China's non-tariff barriers and giving preferential tariff benefits to the products made in Kaesong Industrial Complex. He also said that a variety of government supporting policies will be provided through complementary measures in the future to enable Korean companies to actively take advantage of the FTA to expand their businesses to the global market.
KITA has been hosting the monthly CEO breakfast meeting since 2005 by inviting the specialists from each field of economy, culture and art as well as high ranking government officials. This month marked the 93rd anniversary of the “KITA CEO Breakfast Meeting,” which has become the crucial place for the CEOs of trade industry to share information on economic policies, business management and domestic and international economic trends as well as various management strategies.
