Korea-U.S. FTA

"How to Get a Job at a Korean Law Firm"

It helps to speak Korean, to be Korean, to be polite & persistant.  Brendon Carr: How to Get a Job at a Korean Law Firm (July 27)

Doosan buys Bobcat

Korea's Doosan Infracore Co. is buying the Bobcat construction equipment business from Ingersoll-Rand: Doosan's Record Takeover Puts Korea in Deals Race (Evan Ramstad and Dennis Berman, Wall Street Journal, July 31):

Ramstad on Korea's Mixed Signals on Foreign Investment

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Ramstad reports today on Korean ambivalence toward foreign direct investment: Korea's Mixed Signals May Keep Foreign Investors From Diving In (July 26).

Hollywood No Real Threat to Korean Media

Eli Noam - a professor at Columbia - doesn't think the Korea-U.S. will give Hollywood much, or do much to threaten Korean media: A paradoxical free trade agreement (Financial Times, June 24)

Korean and U.S. "Opinion Leaders" Meet in D.C.

About 50 U.S. and Korean "opinon leaders" - including nine members of Korea's National Assembly - met in Washington, from July 11-13, to discuss economic relations between the two countries.  This is an annual event sponsored by the Korea Economic Institute. 

The agenda hasn't been released, and most presentations were off the record, but clearly the FTA was an important topic.    Here's the Institute's release on the event: Opinion Leaders Seminar.  The page does provide links to the notes or PowerPoint slides for four of the presentations.

Cheaper Meat for Korean Consumers

The Dong-A Ilbo looks at the meat market benefits of the resumption of beef imports and the FTA for Korean consumers .  The resumption of beef imports is arguably a fall-out from the FTA negotiations. (Beef Market Grows, Pork and Chicken Market Shrinks , July 24):

U.S. Administration and Congress At Increasing Odds Over FTAs

Greg Hitt reports that deteriorating relations between the Republican Administration and the Democratic Congress are making it look less likely that there will be any movement on free trade agreements this year: Trade Harmony Between Congress, Bush Suffers a Setback Due to a New Demand (Wall Street Journal, July 23). 

The story focuses on Peru and Panama, but the implications for the So. Korea agreement are not good:

What Do Koreans Think of the FTA?

A majority appears to think that, on balance, it will be good for Korea.

Kim Sung Jin, the Deputy Minister for International Affairs of Korea's Ministry of Finance and Economics, spoke on the FTA recently at a forum in Washington.

The following slide, showing the evolution of Korean opinion about the benefits and costs of the FTA agreement, was part of his presentation.

The KFTA and Taiwan

The Taiwanese are concerned about the impact of the Korea-U.S. FTA on their competitive position in the U.S. market: Taiwan`s textile industry to be hit by South Korea-US FTA (Textile News, July 19):

"The Japanese are jittery"

Dean Kleckner thinks the Korean agreement could lead to an agreement with Japan.  As a farmer, he likes that idea: Trade Dominoes (Truth About Trade & Technology, July 20).