Seul, April 3 (Yonhap) - The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy has announced this Monday that it will take place a new round of negotiations in order to conclude a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with six countries from Central America, with a reciprocal trade volume of around 5,000 million of dollars every year.
In that meeting, that will take place from March 29th to April 1st in Seul, will participate the representatives of South Korea, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Guatemala and Costa Rica.
This will be the fourth round of negotiations; apart from the other three rounds so far February, after the determination of the beginning of the negotiations with the six Central American countries, in June 2015.
In previous sessions they discussed about products, services and investment, the rules of origin and custom value, public procurement, cooperation, public health services and the technical obstacles to commerce, among others.
In this occasion, they will focus on topics like the decrease in the gap between divergent views about products, telecommunication, electronic commerce, investment, riles of origin, etc.
In especial, it will take place the negotiations about the openness of the Central American market for the principal products from the South Korean companies, with the purpose of establishing the basis for the launch and expansion of the share of the Central American market.
The gross domestic product (GDP) of the six countries was of 220,000 million of dollars last year, and the GDP per capita reached an average of 5,793 dollars.
