EU-Korea FTA

The EU Korea FTA Agreement entered into effect of 1^st July and it is envisaged that it will have significant benefits for EU exporters and also for EU Importers. The benefits will be most felt at the beginning, for the first 6 months, after which other countries such as the US and Japan will also get the benefits but the EU at the moment has exclusivity.

The FTA has meant almost immediate full liberalisation of all economic sectors but the total full harmonisation will be achieved within the 7^th year of implementation of the agreement. This has also involved Europe and Korea accepting each other's standard. From the information and figures available it transpires that Malta exports a significant amount of micro-electronic products as well and fish. As far as imports are concerned Malta most importantly imports cars, electronics and electrical machinery, plastics and articles of plastics.

The Commission has now established a functional mailbox at the following address: in order to be provided information about any difficulties when trading with Korea. This is also the central e-mail address for any comments or questions which Member States or business representatives may want to share with the Commission with respect to the implementation of the EU-Korea FTA. We encourage Member States and business to share this address widely with companies and to use it as single entry point. This will ensure timely and coherent internal processing of the comments and questions within the Commission.

The following are additional links with information on the EU-Korea FTA:

• Free Trade Agreement: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=443
• Quick reading Guide: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2009/october/tradoc_145203.pdf
• 10 key Benefits of the EU-Korea FTA: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/october/tradoc_146695.pdf and
• New link on the Market Access Database (MADB) related to the EU-Korea FTA: http://madb.europa.eu/mkaccdb2/indexPubli.htm
• Also note that, on the MADB an operator can check the duties, export procedures and other possible barriers he/she will face if it wants to export to Korea.
• If an importer wants to see the EU tariffs on imports from Korea it can check these through
• the EU Export Helpdesk: http://exporthelp.europa.eu/thdapp/index_en.html or
• through the TARIC system: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds2/taric/taric_consultation.jsp?Lang=en&redirectionDate=20110708.