India and Korea: Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal recently held a bilateral meeting with the Minister for Trade of the Republic of Korea, Yeo Han-Koo in New Delhi.

Both the Ministers held wide-ranging discussions covering the whole gamut of Bilateral Trade and Investment-related aspects.

Key Points about the meeting:

• During the meeting, wide-ranging discussions were held between India and South Korea on extensive B2B interactions related to trade and investment.
• The two sides also decided to impart fresh momentum to the discussions on CEPA up-gradation negotiations.
• The talks focused on the burgeoning trade deficit, market access issues and non-tariff barriers faced by Indian exporters.
• The Ministers agreed to boost bilateral trade between India and Korea to achieve growth in a fair and balanced manner to the mutual advantage of both sides.
• Both the countries agreed to address the difficulties by the business community from both countries and try to achieve the target of $50 billion before 2030, which was agreed at the summit meeting in 2018.

About CEPA:

• Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CEPA) is a Free Trade Agreement.
• The CEPA provided better access for the Indian service industries.
• The Indian service industries included engineering, IT, finance, engineering and legal field.
• With the agreement, Korean manufacturers were provided huge tariff concessions to 1%.

 India-South Korea Trade Relations:

• The trade relations between both India and Korea grew after the establishment of consular relations in 1962.
• The relations were upgraded to Ambassador-level relations in 1973.
• Korea is a major focal point in India’s ‘Act East Policy’.
• In 2010, India and Korea signed Economic Cooperation Agreement.
  • This increased the trade and investment in both the countries.
• In 2016, an initiative called 'Korea Plus’ was launched by both countries to boost Korean investments in India.
• Major Korean companies including Samsung, Hyundai Motors and LG have made heavy investments in India in recent years.
• Indian companies like Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra and banks like State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda have large investments in South Korea.

Trade Deficit:

• India faces trade deficit against Korea as Indian exports to Korea is less than the Indian imports from the country.
• India's export from South Korea in 2020-21 was at 4.2 billion dollars while imports were at 9.5 billion dollars.

About South Korea:

• South Korea officially the Republic of Korea is an East Asian nation on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.
• Constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and it shares one of the world’s most heavily militarized borders with North Korea.
• Its Capital is Seoul.
• The currency used here is South Korean won.
• The current President and the Prime minister of South Korea are Moon Jae-in and Chung Sye-kyun respectively.