India and South Korea are to sign a trade pact today to cut duties on goods including car parts and electronics, South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said yesterday in Seoul.
Hyundai Motor Co may benefit most from the deal, in which the two nations agreed to reduce an average 12.5 percent tariff on auto parts exports from South Korea over eight years.
Hyundai, which operates an auto manufacturing plant near Chennai India, sold 244,030 vehicles there in the year ended March 31, trailing only Maruti Suzuki India Ltd in the nation of 1.2 billion people. The biggest South Korean automaker gets 55 percent of sales from emerging markets, including India and China, where auto demand has withstood the global slowdown.
India will eliminate tariffs on 74.5 percent of South Korean exports within eight years and reduce duties on a further 10.9 percent within 10 years, the ministry said. These will include auto parts, tankers, electronic goods, machinery parts and synthetic rubber.
South Korea will eliminate tariffs on 84.7 percent of Indian exports within eight years and reduce duties on a further 5 percent within 10 years. These will include polycarbonates, leather, industrial diamonds, gasoline and corn for livestock.
The two nations decided to exclude other agricultural goods, finished automobiles, fisheries and textiles from the deal.
The South Korean law implementing the pact is expected to take effect on Jan. 1, said Choi Kyong-lim, the director-general overseeing trade agreements at the ministry.
The two nations will also expand job opportunities for skilled personnel from India in the field of information technology, engineering, management consulting, machinery and telecommunications, and scientific research, the ministry said. It didn’t specify any quotas on the number of Indian nationals expected to take up jobs in South Korea in the future.
India has also opened up its market to investment in all its industries with the exception of agriculture, fisheries and mining. South Korea will be able to invest in food processing, textiles, garments, chemicals, metals and machinery, it said.
The two countries had resolved “all outstanding issues” in September and have since been reviewing the legal wording of the document, known as a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the ministry had said at the time. They had initially hoped to sign the deal by the end of last year.
Bilateral trade between India and South Korea rose 39 percent last year to US$15.6 billion. South Korea exported US$3.6 billion of goods to India, and imported US$1.6 billion in the first six months of the year.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS