ISDS Case Map
Korea
The EU intends to move ahead with a free-trade agreement currently being negotiated with South Korea despite delays and grumbles from the European car industry.
Hee-Beom Lee is a fierce free trade advocate who believes there are plenty of opportunities for Korean business people to invest in New Zealand including in critical sectors like dairy.
International Financial Services London, representing banks,
accountants and other financial industries, said it was disappointed
that some European manufacturing groups opposed the deal and were calling
for negotiations to be suspended.
South Korea has signed a contract with a US lobbyist to facilitate congressional ratification of a pending free trade deal amid growing opposition to the pact fueled by the global economic crisis, Yonhap News reported Monday quoting an informed source.
Local media say South Korea wants to finalize the FTA talks within the first quarter this year and make it effective early next year.
European car makers called Thursday for the European Union to scrap a draft free-trade deal with South Korea, saying it won't let them increase exports during a sales slump at home.
South Korean companies are eyeing the investment potential of prime New Zealand resources as both countries prepare to start bilateral free trade negotiations.
The US will find it harder and harder to maintain neoliberalism abroad and some sort of financial state capitalism at home. As unemployment grows, it will also become more difficult to use access to the US market as leverage to incorporate client states abroad into the fold of US imperialism. We are at a major turning point. Like most of neoliberal ideology, free trade has lost its allure. However, what will replace it isn't entirely clear. There are many possibilities, and they all depend on the level of class struggle. In the US, the most crucial question is whether workers get pulled into a nationalist, protectionist "Buy American" campaign--or whether they take an internationalist approach in concert with workers in other countries
Both the Korean government and the ruling party seem to be waiting for the Americans to make up their minds
South Korea and Australia have taken another step towards signing a free trade agreement (FTA), despite the ongoing global economic crisis.
