Israel has completed negotiations with South Korea to create a free trade area, having prepared the first agreement of this kind with an Asian country, Gilad Cohen, the deputy director general for Asia and the Pacific at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday
TEL AVIV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2019) Israel has completed negotiations with South Korea to create a free trade area, having prepared the first agreement of this kind with an Asian country, Gilad Cohen, the deputy director general for Asia and the Pacific at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday.Diplomats hope that these arrangements, which have yet to be signed and ratified, will become a starting point for similar preferential regimes with a number of other states in the Asian region.
"Done!! Launching a new era in Israel-South Korea relations with the completion of negotiations on an historic (1st of its kind in Asia!) Free Trade Agreement," Cohen said on Twitter.
The Israel-South Korea talks lasted for three years and concluded in Jerusalem on Wednesday in the presence of South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee and Israeli Industry Minister Eli Cohen, according to the Foreign Ministry.
Eli Cohen believes that this agreement is extremely important from an economic and diplomatic points of view and that it will pave the way for similar agreements with other Asian countries, such as China and Vietnam, and later with Japan and Thailand.
According to media reports, the agreement does not apply to goods produced in Jewish settlements outside the so-called green line the internationally recognized border of Israel.
Earlier this year, Israel signed a free trade agreement with Ukraine and continues to work on a similar agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union, which comprises Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
