95.6% of Cambodian Imports Duty-Free... Ministry of Economy and Finance Announces Enforcement Decree Draft

The Emergency Tariff Imposition Period Shall Not Exceed Two Years

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Kwon Haeyoung] The Ministry of Economy and Finance announced on the 20th that it will publicly notify the amendment of the 'Enforcement Decree and Enforcement Rules of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Customs Act for the Implementation of FTAs,' reflecting the contents of the Korea-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), until the 3rd of next month.

This amendment was made to supplement and organize some regulations related to the implementation of the FTA along with the main contents of the Korea-Cambodia FTA.

First, to ensure smooth implementation after the Korea-Cambodia FTA comes into effect, the enforcement decree reflected the agreement tariffs applied to Cambodian imports as well as flexible tariff procedures such as emergency tariffs and countervailing tariffs. Accordingly, the schedule of agreement tariff rates for about 11,000 items was added to the annex of the enforcement decree, and when the agreement is implemented in the future, tariffs on 95.6% of all items imported from Cambodia will be gradually abolished or reduced.

In addition, when imposing emergency or countervailing tariffs on goods imported from Cambodia, the agreement includes provisions to notify the other party of the commencement of an investigation into domestic industry damage before imposition, consult with them, and set the imposition period of emergency tariffs to less than two years.

Furthermore, to ensure smooth implementation of the agreement, detailed contents of the Korea-Cambodia agreement such as the criteria for determining the origin applied to imported goods, the format of the certificate of origin, and the issuance method were reflected in the enforcement decree and enforcement rules.

For existing FTAs, the amended certificate of origin format reflecting the removal of the 'limit on the number of items listed on the certificate of origin (20 items)' agreed upon by both countries to expand the application of the Korea-China FTA was incorporated into the enforcement rules. The certificate of origin format agreed upon during the Korea-Israel FTA negotiation process was also reflected in the enforcement rules. Among the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member countries, the institution responsible for issuing certificates of origin in New Zealand was recently confirmed, and this was also reflected in the enforcement rules.

Additionally, the enforcement rules were supplemented to allow the Korea Customs Service to review whether specific goods are subject to agreement tariffs before the import declaration is accepted.

Translation errors in the criteria for determining the origin of certain items under the Singapore, United States, and Canada FTAs were corrected in the enforcement rules to align with the original meaning of the agreement texts.

The amendments will collect public opinions during the legislative notification period, and after review by the vice minister and the Cabinet meeting, new FTA-related matters will be implemented upon the agreement's enforcement, while other system improvements will be implemented immediately upon promulgation.

A government official stated, "Going forward, the government will continue efforts to ensure the smooth implementation of FTAs and improve related systems so that the FTAs we have concluded can be of practical help to our export and import companies."

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