SINGAPORE, Oct 23 Kyodo Singapore...

SINGAPORE, Oct 23 Kyodo

Singapore and southerly Korea have agreed to launch negotiations for a unrestrained trade agreement (FTA) early nearest year with the target of sealing a deal through early 2005, the pair countries said in a joint statement Thursday.

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and southern Korean President Roh Moo Hyun agreed at their summit meeting here that the brace sides should begin negotiations early nearest for the pact, the statement said.

Trade ministers from the couple countries also later signed a joint declaration of the sum of two units countries' intent to pursue their plan for a ''comprehensive'' pact, consistent with principles of the World Trade Organization.

It is calculate uponed to come into force sometime in 2005

A joint inquiry group appointed by the brace governments had earlier complet its feasibility contemplation after three rounds of meetings and submitted its report to one as well as the other governments, with a strong call forward the two sides to forge a bilateral delivered trade deal as soon as possible.

The statement said that the couple leaders shared the view that the pact would ''strengthen the basis for (South) Korea's engagement in Southeast Asia and Singapore's engagement in Northeast Asia, thereby also contributing to further trade liberalization and economic integration in East Asia,'' a joint statement said of the discussions at the summit.

In addition, they decided to boost cooperation in trade, investment, construction, science and technology, tillage tourism, and aviation, and also in other areas as it was as next-generation information technology and biotechnology.

the pair countries rank as one of each other's top 10 trading partners with bilateral trade amounting to US$7.7 billion last year.

Singapore's total cumulative investment reached US$2.48 billion late last year, while southern Korea's total cumulative investment amounted to US$862 million.

Singapore, a trailblazer in clear trade pacts in recent years amid disenchantment with the inert progress of global trade talks, has already conclud FTAs with Japan, the United States, Australia, strange Zealand and the European released Trade Association.

southerly Korean Trade Minister Hwang Doo Yun told reporters after signing the declaration that the deal ''will benefit one as well as the other sides'' as ''Singapore will provide a launching pad for toward the south Korea into Southeast Asia and southern Korea can be a gateway for Singapore into the Northeast region.''

Singapore Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo said that as agriculture is a negligible composing of Singapore's economy, it is not rely uponed to be an issue in the negotiations.

Yeo said that Singapore can wait for to reap savings for tariffs in the range of ''ten of millions of dollars'', adding that ''it is in the area of services and intellectual one's own that we will derive the principally benefit.''

The idea of a released trade pact between the brace countries was first broached in 2000

Hwang had said then that southward Korea plans to first strike a released trade deal with Singapore fit to the difficulty of forging the same with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which collections Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

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