Mercosur and Korea concluded the second round of negotiations for a free trade agreement in Seoul, where they reaffirmed their desire to conclude the negotiations in 2020, the Argentine Foreign Ministry reported in a statement.
Both parties worked on the different chapters of the future new generation agreement, which includes disciplines such as trade in goods, services, public procurement, investments, electronic commerce, trade defense, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, intellectual property, sustainable development and dispute settlement, among others.
The significant progress achieved on almost all issues allows us to foresee a closure of the negotiation process during 2020. Argentina and Mercosur hope that an agreement with South Korea will become a gateway for exports to the Asia Pacific region..
The Korean market offers potential for Argentina, due to its population - more than 51 million - and a GDP per capita of US$ 29.740. It is a food importer and an important investor at a global level, so a trade agreement could favor the attraction of capital from that origin to Mercosur.
In 2018, the main products exported by Argentina to the Republic of Korea, in value, were corn grain, silver minerals, lithium carbonates, frozen rays, shrimp, crude soybean oil, combed wool, frozen squid, vaccines against foot-and-mouth disease and wines.
Korea's GDP is expected to grow by 2,6% in 2019. The country has free trade agreements with 75% of global GDP, and is negotiating such deals with countries that account for another 8% of global output.
In January 2019, trade between Argentina and South Korea showed a slight surplus in favor of our country, of almost US$ 10 million. Argentina is South Korea's sixth largest supplier of agricultural goods.
The next round will take place between July 8 and 12, 2019 in Montevideo.
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