Korea Cuts 70 Percent of Tariff Posts
Tuesday, 19 December, 2006 | 17:44 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: South Korea will cut 70 percent off all its tariff posts starting as of January 1, 2007, for all members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

This is a free trade cooperation agreement between ASEAN members and their dialog partner South Korea, and has been planned since 1997.

“More or less seventy percent of import duties or 3,523 tariffs posts will go straight to zero percent,” said Deddy Saleh, Director of Multilateral Cooperation at the Trade Department, last weekend in Jakarta.

He explained that Korea is willing to do away with its import duties first because it is the most developed country compared to ASEAN countries.

“On the other hand, at the same time ASEAN must lower 50 percent of all its tariff posts to Korea. Import duties will go down by five percent,” said Deddy.

Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) shows that between January and October 2006, non-oil and gas exports to Korea reached US$2.7 billion.

This was an increase of 116.3 percent compared to the same period last year.

RR Ariyani