A Study on the Necessity of Korea-MERCOSUR FTA and Policy Implications

한-MERCOSUR FTA의 필요성과 추진전략

MERCOSUR, which is the biggest economic community in the Latin America, has great potential as Korea's export market with 220 million population and 2.8 trillion$ GDP. In the midst of global economic crises, the importance of MERCOSUR is highlighted with relatively sound economic growth. The average tariff rate of MERCOSUR is 10.4~12.2% which is almost same as that of Korea(12.2%), but the tariff rates on Korea's main export items such as auto, display, digital camera, mobile phone are as high as 20~30%, which means that Korea-MERCOSUR FTA will result in substantial growth of Korea's export. In pursuing Korea-MERCOSUR FTA, cooperations in natural resources, agriculture, mid-sized aircraft, construction and green energy as well as liberalization of commodity market are very important for Korea. To realize Korea-MERCOSUR FTA, it is essential to overcome the objections from the manufacturing sectors of MERCOSUR. So it is desirable to aim relatively low in terms of the level of liberalization at the beginning, and expand corporate and industrial cooperation between Korea and MERCOSUR's manufacturing industries.