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North Korean workers are manufacturing cooking pots in a plant in Kaesong. Kaesong/Yonhap News
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Seoul wants Washington to consider Kaesong products part of the deal
Seoul made it clear at the first round of South Korea-U.S. FTA negotiations in Washington June 5 that it will protect the domestic rice market as well as seek Kaesong products to be included in the agreement. Kaesong, located in North Korea, is a joint economic cooperation zone between the two Koreas. The negotiations are expected to be challenging for the South Korean delegation. "It will be difficult to have the U.S. designate products made in the Kaesong industrial complex as South Korean-made products," Deputy Minister for International Affairs of the Ministry of Finance and Economy Kim Sung-jin said in a radio interview June 5. Deputy Minister Kim identified the automobile, pharmaceuticals, financial services and telecommunications markets as the main issues of the first round of FTA talks. He added that the government would communicate proceedings to the media and National Assembly in order to conduct the negotiations as transparently as possible."Drafts of the negotiations naturally contain the maximum demands of both sides. The U.S. will aggressively seek to raise the market shares for their products, which have been sluggish in the Korean markets, and the same applies for Korea," Mr. Kim explained. Regarding the opening of the agricultural and medical and educational service markets, Kim Dong-soo, director of the finance ministry, stressed that the government will try to maintain the basic framework of existing health insurance policy, and to exclude the rice market from the negotiations. Hundreds of South Korean and U.S. activists took part in a joint demonstration in Washington against the bilateral FTA. Scores of South Korean protestors, including Rep. Kang Ki-gap of the Democratic Labor Party, were joined by about 250 American activists at a park near the White House, where they held a rally and a subsequent march through downtown Washington. The march proceeded peacefully. Lee Jae-su, representative of a U.S. committee to stop South Korea-U.S. bilateral FTA, said, "We will continue to hold peaceful rallies and demonstrations."
