Gradual Elimination and Reduction of Tariffs on Imported Goods from Indonesia and Israel

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Son Seon-hee] Tariffs on a total of 22,000 items imported from Indonesia and Israel will be gradually abolished or reduced in the future.

The Ministry of Economy and Finance announced on the 20th that it reviewed and approved the "Partial Amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Special Cases Concerning Tariff Act for the Implementation of Free Trade Agreements" at the Cabinet meeting.

This amendment aims to reflect the main contents of the recently signed Korea-Indonesia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and Korea-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA) into domestic law. The preferential tariff schedules for 11,000 items from each country were included in the enforcement decree and will be applied according to the announcement of the agreements. In the case of emergency tariffs applied when an increase in imports of certain goods causes disruption in the domestic market, the imposition period has been limited to no more than two years.

Along with this, procedures related to the application for free trade agreement tariffs were also improved to enhance taxpayer convenience. When applying for preferential tariffs within the quota quantity, the submission deadline for the related party recommendation letter, which had to be submitted before the import declaration, has been extended to "within 15 days after the import declaration." Additionally, the certificate of origin, which previously had to be submitted only in original form, can now be submitted as a copy.

The enforcement decree approved on this day is scheduled to be promulgated by the end of this month after procedures such as presidential approval. The application procedures for preferential tariffs will take effect immediately upon promulgation, and new free trade agreement-related matters will be implemented from the time the agreements are announced.

The Ministry of Economy and Finance stated, "We will steadily proceed with preparations for the smooth implementation of new free trade agreements, and continue efforts to improve related systems so that the free trade agreements concluded so far can provide practical benefits to our export and import companies."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.