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Korean and U.S. negotiators in bilateral free trade talks reached their first agreement on antitrust policy, on Thursday, the first day of the eighth round. The sector deals with regulations for unfair business practices such as monopolies.
Korean chief negotiator Kim Jong-hoon told reporters that Korea agreed with the U.S. to introduce a rule whereby violators would be let off if they promise a fair trade watchdog to correct their wrongdoings. The U.S., Japan and the EU adopted the system to speed up the resolution of antitrust cases, which are legally ambiguous and time-consuming to settle. A specific reference to ¡°chaebol¡± -- Korea's large family-owned conglomerates -- in the footnotes of the agreement was deleted.
Kim expects the two countries to reach final agreement on customs in this round, saying they will find common ground on rules of origin and the establishment of a customs subcommittee.
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Korea's chief negotiator Kim Jong-hoon shakes hands with chief U.S. negotiator Wendy Cutler at a hotel in Seoul on Thursday morning, when the eighth round of the South Korea-U.S. free trade talks began.
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The U.S. continued to press South Korea hard on the opening of the beef and auto markets. Washington's chief negotiator Wendy Cutler reiterated the importance of solving the beef issue, saying, "Our Congress continues to make it abundantly clear to us that there will be no FTA without a full reopening of the Korea beef market." She slammed Korea's insistence at a senior delegates' conference on agriculture on Tuesday to return beef found to contain bone chips. "The core of Korea's proposal here is based on what we call a 'zero tolerance' for bone chips. We just can't agree to that proposal given that it's not based on science and it's just commercially unfeasible,¡± she said.
Cutler said her team was determined to make every effort to satisfy U.S. congressmen who are calling for the removal of tariffs on U.S. cars in Korea. She also told reporters her country will give top priority to making American automakers compete with their Korean counterparts on an equal footing, a signal that talks on the auto market will be tough. As for products from the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea, Cutler reiterated that they cannot be included in a bilateral FTA with South Korea.
Meanwhile, Richard Crowder, the chief agricultural negotiator at the U.S. Trade Representative, denied reports that the two sides as good as agreed to exempt rice from the list of items subject to market opening. Instead, Crowder stressed that all sectors including rice remain on the table. In Thursday¡¯s press conference in Seoul, Cutler said, "We enter what will be a decisive week in the negotiations with optimism, determination and focus. And with this mindset I continue to remain optimistic that this deal can be done by the end of the month."
If there seems to be a difference in tone between the two, it is presumably because the U.S. is determined to get the most from what is effectively the last round of comprehensive talks before the details are fine-tuned. But it is possible that these key matters -- beef, rice, car tariffs and Kaesong products -- will remain unresolved in this round. A South Korean delegate said, "It's true that we have made more progress. We will seek a compromise on the items we have yet to settle in high-level talks¡± after this round.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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