South Korea and China have made a small but clear breakthrough in the latest round of negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), reaching an agreement on how they will pursue liberalization of their service and investment markets, the South Korean government said Friday, Yonhap News Agency reported.
"Regarding the service and investment sectors, (the two countries) reached an agreement in principle on the way of market liberalization that had been one of the largest remaining issues," the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a press release.
Woo Tae-hee, South Korea's assistant trade minister, later said there has been "visible and meaningful progress." The 12th round of South Korea-China FTA negotiations was held in Daegu, 300 kilometers south of Seoul, from Monday through Friday.
The talks marked the first of their kind since a summit between the countries' heads of state earlier this month in Seoul, in which the two repeated their call for the conclusion of the FTA negotiations before the end of the year.