Korea and India will resume negotiations to improve their Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) after a three-month hiatus. The two countries will discuss market access for goods and services, rules of origin, and cooperation in supply chains and strategic industries.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on August 19 that the 13th round of CEPA improvement talks will take place in Seoul until August 21. CEPA is a trade agreement designed to enhance economic cooperation while allowing flexibility in the structure and level of market access compared to existing free trade agreements (FTAs).
India, with a population of approximately 1.43 billion and a GDP of about $4 trillion, represents a significant emerging market. However, last year, trade between Korea and India amounted to $25.6 billion, which is only about one-tenth of the trade volume with ASEAN, a region with a similar economic scale. The government sees substantial potential for expanding trade and investment between the two countries through CEPA improvements.
Negotiations to improve the Korea-India CEPA began in 2016 but were temporarily halted due to differences in positions between the two countries. Following a summit in April, talks resumed, leading to the 12th round of negotiations held in New Delhi in May.
This upcoming round of negotiations comes approximately three months after the 12th round. Lee Min-young, Deputy Director of Trade Agreement Negotiations at the Ministry of Trade, and Kapil Chaudhary, Director of the Ministry of Commerce of India, will serve as the chief representatives, with over 60 government officials participating.
The discussions will focus on six key areas: essential goods and services, rules of origin, non-tariff barriers, supply chains, and industrial cooperation. In terms of market access for goods and services, the countries will identify specific items and sectors of interest and explore possibilities for further opening. Issues related to rules of origin and technical regulations affecting goods will also be addressed.
New areas of cooperation, such as supply chains and strategic industrial collaboration, which were not adequately reflected in the existing CEPA, will also be on the negotiation table. The operational framework and key agenda of the newly established Korea-India Industrial Cooperation Committee, created during the April summit, will be discussed.
This round of negotiations is significant as it expands the scope of traditional trade talks, which focused primarily on tariffs and market access, to include supply chains and strategic industrial cooperation. The aim is to establish a framework that links India's production base and domestic market with Korea's manufacturing and technological capabilities amid the global supply chain restructuring.
The Ministry stated, "Through these improvement negotiations, we will establish a foundation for economic cooperation that encompasses not only traditional market access but also supply chains and industrial collaboration between the two countries."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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