South Korea: European agricultural products trade deficit widened

Published Jul 7, 2021

Tridge summary

The Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which has been in effect for ten years, has led to a significant increase in Korea's trade deficit with the EU for agricultural and fishery products. According to a trade report by the Korea International Trade Research Institute (KITA), EU imports of these products surged by 138% from 2010 to 2020, while Korea's exports saw a smaller increase. The trade deficit grew from $1.54 billion to $3.64 billion during the same period. The report highlights the elimination of tariffs on livestock products, dairy, and processed food as key factors contributing to this trend. However, it notes that there was no impact assessment for most of these imports before the FTA was implemented.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

In the 10 years since the Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) came into force, it was found that Korea's trade deficit with the EU for agricultural and fishery products increased significantly. While imports increased mainly from livestock products such as pork and cheese, and dairy products, it was confirmed that the imports of processed foods, which were rarely subjected to an import impact assessment, also increased sharply. These details are included in the ‘Trade Report’ titled ‘Performances and Implications of the 10th Anniversary of the Korea-EU FTA’ recently published by the Korea International Trade Research Institute (KITA). The Korea-EU FTA, which went into effect in July 2011, is evaluated to be the second highest after the Korea-US FTA in terms of the level of openness to agricultural and livestock products among FTAs concluded by Korea. According to the report, EU imports of agricultural and fishery products last year amounted to $4.051 billion, up 138% from ...

Source: Nongmin