Government and Mexico Agree to "Promptly Resume Official FTA Negotiations" in Foreign Ministers' Meeting

Published 05 Jul.2022 08:57(KST)

[Asia Economy Reporter Inho Yoo] The government agreed on the importance of promptly resuming official negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries during the foreign ministers' meeting with Mexico.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on the 5th that Minister Park Jin reached a consensus with Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico's Minister of Foreign Affairs, during their meeting held in Seoul the previous day to further institutionalize economic cooperation between the two countries.

Korea and Mexico initiated a Strategic Economic Complementation Agreement (SECA), a preliminary step to the FTA, in 2006 and upgraded it to FTA negotiations the following year; however, related negotiations were suspended in 2008.

Since then, at the 2016 summit, the two countries agreed to resume negotiations and have been pursuing subsequent procedures.

Minister Park emphasized the importance of Korea joining the Pacific Alliance (PA), a coalition of four countries including Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, as an associate member, and expressed expectations for further expansion of cooperation in energy and infrastructure.

He also proposed reactivating the Korea-Mexico Economic Joint Committee to discuss more comprehensive economic cooperation in areas such as supply chains and economic security.

Minister Ebrard highly appreciated the participation of Korean companies in the construction of the Dos Bocas refinery facility in Tabasco, southern Mexico, and requested the expansion of Korean companies' investment and entry, as well as sharing policy experiences through the Korea-Mexico Knowledge Sharing Program (KSP).

He also warmly welcomed Korea's decision to support Mexico's child COVID-19 vaccination campaign by providing 800,000 doses of Pfizer pediatric vaccines.