The Hankyoreh, Seoul
Seoul aims to seal FTA with U.S. by end of June
13 June 2007
Yonhap News, Seoul -- The South Korean government has yet to receive a formal U.S. request for additional negotiations on a tentative bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) and will push to finalize the deal by the end of this month, the office of President Roh Moo-hyun said Wednesday.
"The government will take steps to have the president seal the FTA deal with the U.S. by June 30 after the Ministry of Government Legislation and the Cabinet take relevant procedures," Roh's spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said in a daily media briefing.
South Korean and U.S. negotiators reached a tentative FTA deal on April 2 to allow for a 90-day review by the Congress before President George W. Bush's fast-track trade promotion authority expires on July 1.
Cheon added Washington has not made any formal request for extra negotiations over the tentative FTA deal.
Regarding reports that the U.S. Congress may push to exclude South Korean goods produced in North Korea's Kaesong industrial complex from the FTA deal, Cheon said the issue would be smoothly resolved through internal negotiations in Washington.
"We heard that the U.S. Trade Representative has already raised objection to the Congress's move to exclude Kaesong from the so-called outward processing zones (OPZs) stipulated in the draft FTA annex," said the spokesman. "The South Korean government expects the Kaesong issue to be smoothly resolved through internal policy readjustment in Washington."
South Korea and the U.S. had maneuvered around the sensitive issue of the inter-Korean joint economic venture in Kaesong by agreeing to discuss in the future whether or not to include products from the OPZs in their FTA.
The North Korean border city of Kaesong is the site of a manufacturing complex where South Korean capital is combined with North Korea's cheap labor to produce price-competitive goods.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said in a parliamentary interpellation session that his government will positively consider a U.S. proposal, if made, for renegotiation of the bilateral FTA deal.
"If the U.S. side proposes additional negotiation or renegotiation, our government will consider it to help facilitate the ratification of the free trade deal," Han said.
"Basically, the government is determined not to respond to any request for extra negotiation or renegotiation. But there have been political changes in the U.S., as the majority of Democratic Party legislators demanded a renegotiation."
But the prime minister made clear that additional negotiation, if held, would be restricted to environment and labor issues.
