Park Geun-hye and Nguyen Tan Dung sign FTA

Korean minister of trade, industry and energy Yoon Sang-jick (front, right) and his Vietnamese counterpart Vu Huy Hoang sign the Korea-Vietnam FTA

Korean president Park Guen-hya and Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Tan have announced the conclusion of a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) between the two nations.

The conclusion of the agreement was announced at the Asian-Korea Commemorative Summit on 10 December, more than two years since negotiations on the FTA began.

As part of the agreement, Vietnam will eliminate tariffs on 92.2 per cent of Korean products, while Korea will remove import tariffs on 95.4 per cent of products, including garlic and ginger.

The FTA contains 17 chapters and is expected to see bilateral trade more than double to US$70bn by 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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