Gao Hucheng, Chinese Minister of Commerce, and Yoon Sangjick, Korea minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, respectively represented the governments of the two countries and officially signed “The Free Trade Agreement between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of Korea” in Seoul on June 1st. After the signing ceremony, both of them met with reporters.

    Compared with the other agreements which we signed with foreign countries, China-Korea Free Trade Agreement covers the widest range of issue and involves the biggest trade volume up to now. It is a mutual beneficial and win-win agreement to China and Korea, which realizes the goals of “generally balanced, comprehensive and high-level benefits”. According to the agreement, in terms of openness, the proportion of trade liberalization of goods on both sides exceeds 90% of tax items and 85% of trade volume. The agreement covers goods trade, service trade, investment, rules and so on, totally 17 fields and also contains e-commerce, competition policy, government procurement, environment and other “economic and trade issues in the 21st century”. At the same time, both sides promised to carry on service trade negotiations with the pattern of negative list after the signed agreement going into effect. Besides, investment negotiations would be carried out based on pre-establishment national treatment and the pattern of negative list.