Orgalime comments on the implementation of the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement five years down the road

Orgalime welcomes the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the European Union and Korea, which entered into force in July 2011. Looking at the first five years following implementation, the development of bilateral trade in the engineering industries is very positive. However, this is overshadowed by the implementation of new non-tariff barriers by Korea for engineering goods in spring 2013. Since then, several product groups have to go through mandatory third-party certification in Korea.

Currently, the EU and Korea are negotiating an update of the EU-Korea FTA. From the standpoint of the European engineering industries, this is a good opportunity to bring forward and solve the non-tariff barrier mentioned above.