South Korea and Singapore will launch negotiations this week on a free trade pact between the two Asian countries, officials said yesterday.
The three-day talks will start today in Singapore, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry said in a statement.
In October, the two countries had said they hoped to conclude a deal before 2005. Trade ministers from both sides have also stressed that the deal would provide access to each other's regions, not just their domestic markets.
South Korea is Singapore's 9th largest trading partner, while Singapore is South Korea's 10th largest trading partner, and its main partner in Southeast Asia. The two countries' bilateral trade amounted to US$7.8 billion last year.
South Korea signed its first free-trade agreement in February, with Chile. But parliament has not approved the pact yet because of political bickering and protests by Korean farmers, who fear it would flood the market with cheap imports and threaten their livelihood.
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