India and South Korea are to sign a trade pact today to cut duties on goods including car parts and electronics, South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said yesterday in Seoul.
Hyundai Motor Co may benefit most from the deal, in which the two nations agreed to reduce an average 12.5 percent tariff on auto parts exports from South Korea over eight years.
Hyundai, which operates an auto manufacturing plant near Chennai India, sold 244,030 vehicles there in the year ended March 31, trailing only Maruti Suzuki India Ltd in the nation of 1.2 billion people. The biggest South Korean automaker gets 55 percent of sales from emerging markets, including India and China, where auto demand has withstood the global slowdown.
India will eliminate tariffs on 74.5 percent of South Korean exports within eight years and reduce duties on a further 10.9 percent within 10 years, the ministry said. These will include auto parts, tankers, electronic goods, machinery parts and synthetic rubber.
South Korea will eliminate tariffs on 84.7 percent of Indian exports within eight years and reduce duties on a further 5 percent within 10 years. These will include polycarbonates, leather, industrial diamonds, gasoline and corn for livestock.
The two nations decided to exclude other agricultural goods, finished automobiles, fisheries and textiles from the deal.
The South Korean law implementing the pact is expected to take effect on Jan. 1, said Choi Kyong-lim, the director-general overseeing trade agreements at the ministry.
The two nations will also expand job opportunities for skilled personnel from India in the field of information technology, engineering, management consulting, machinery and telecommunications, and scientific research, the ministry said. It didn’t specify any quotas on the number of Indian nationals expected to take up jobs in South Korea in the future.
India has also opened up its market to investment in all its industries with the exception of agriculture, fisheries and mining. South Korea will be able to invest in food processing, textiles, garments, chemicals, metals and machinery, it said.
The two countries had resolved “all outstanding issues” in September and have since been reviewing the legal wording of the document, known as a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the ministry had said at the time. They had initially hoped to sign the deal by the end of last year.
Bilateral trade between India and South Korea rose 39 percent last year to US$15.6 billion. South Korea exported US$3.6 billion of goods to India, and imported US$1.6 billion in the first six months of the year.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
PRECEDENTED TIMES: In news that surely does not shock, AI and tech exports drove a banner for exports last year as Taiwan’s economic growth experienced a flood tide Taiwan’s exports delivered a blockbuster finish to last year with last month’s shipments rising at the second-highest pace on record as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and advanced computing remained strong, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Exports surged 43.4 percent from a year earlier to US$62.48 billion last month, extending growth to 26 consecutive months. Imports climbed 14.9 percent to US$43.04 billion, the second-highest monthly level historically, resulting in a trade surplus of US$19.43 billion — more than double that of the year before. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) described the performance as “surprisingly outstanding,” forecasting export growth
RSS