A long-delayed free-trade agreement between the US and South Korea took effect yesterday, winning praise from the two countries’ leaders and prompting rallies by supporters and opponents.
Export-dependent South Korea now has trade pacts with the world’s two biggest economic areas, after a deal with the EU went into force in July last year.
The latest pact, which scraps duties on thousands of items, is the biggest for the US since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994.
Photo: AFP
US President Barack Obama called his South Korean counterpart, Lee Myung-bak, to welcome the beginning of the agreement, which analysts say will boost exports by billions of US dollars a year and strengthen the decades-old alliance.
Lee told Obama the deal would be a “good model” for global free trade and strengthen economic development and bilateral ties, according to his office.
The agreement was originally signed in July 2007, but approved by the US Congress only in October, after a partial renegotiation to address US auto industry complaints. South Korea’s parliament ratified it in November despite vehement protests from opposition lawmakers, one of whom set off a tear gas canister in the assembly.
Lee said the world envies South Korea’s latest trade deal and urged officials to help farmers, fishermen and small-to-medium-sized firms adapt to it as soon as possible.
“Instead of simply compensating them for their losses, we have to help them gain a competitive edge,” Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying.
Critics say the deal is lopsided and serves big business at the expense of South Korea’s farmers and service industries. Seoul’s foreign ministry said in a statement it would expand trade and strengthen security ties with its closest ally.
Two-way trade reached US$101 billion last year, up from the previous year’s US$90.2 billion, according to Korea Customs Service data. The US International Trade Commission has estimated that South Korean exports to the US would increase by US$6.4 billion to US$6.9 billion annually following the deal.
South Korea’s main opposition party, which negotiated the 2007 deal while in office, says revisions have made it one-sided. It vows to seek a renegotiation if it wins a general election next month and a presidential poll in December.
An estimated 1,200 protesters rallied in Seoul on Wednesday evening, hours before the agreement came into force at midnight local time.
Yesterday, about 30 people, including politicians and farmers’ and workers’ representatives, demonstrated against it, while an umbrella anti-FTA group called for a candlelit vigil for the evening.
Protesters said the agreement would only “make the rich richer and the poor poorer” and devastate South Korea’s weak agriculture and service industries.
Nonetheless, hundreds rallied outside Seoul station in support of the deal.
“Let’s occupy the world market and become an economic power,” one slogan read.
South Korea also has trade deals in force with the EU, India, Chile, Peru, ASEAN, Singapore and the European Free Trade Association.
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