WT/REG287/M/1  
 
23 May 2018 
(18-3030) Page: 1/4 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements  
Eighty -eighth Session    
 
FREE TRADE AGREEMENT  BETWEEN THE ASSOCIAT ION OF SOUTHEAST ASI AN NATIONS 
(ASEAN) AND THE REPU BLIC OF KOREA, SERVI CES  
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 9-10 APRIL 2018  
Chairma n: Ambassador Julian BRAITHWAITE (United Kingdom)  
1.1.  The 88th Session of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (hereinafter 'CRTA' or the 
'Committee') was convened in Airgram  WTO/AIR/RTA/13/Rev.1 dated 29 March 2018 . 
1.2.  Under Agenda Item H.III of the Session, the CRTA considered the  Free Trade Agreement 
between the Association of Southeast As ian Nations (ASEAN) and the Republic of Korea , Services , 
(hereinafter "the Agreement").  
1.3.  The Chairman  said that the Services  Agreement had entered into force on 1 May 2009 (for 
some Parties) and 14 October 2010 (for all the Parties). It had been notified to  the WTO by the 
Parties on 15 June and 6 July 2010 and on 21 April 2011 under GATS Article V:7(a) as an 
Agreement providing for the liberalization of trade in services within the meaning of Article V of the 
GATS (documents S/C/N/559 and S/C/N/559/Add.1 and  S/C/N/560 and S/C/N/560/Add.1). The 
text of the Agreement was available, together with its Annexes, on the Parties' official websites. 
The Factual Presentation on the services aspects (document WT/REG287/1 dated 18 January 
2018) and questions and replies on the Agreement (document WT/REG287/2 dated 4 April 2018) 
had been distributed. He drew Members' attention to recent responses received from Cambodia 
that had been issued in room document in RD/RTA/48. A revision to the question and replies 
document would  be issued after the meeting.  
1.4.  The representative of  Thailand  on behalf of ASEAN welcome d the opportunity to present the 
Agreement at the CRTA meeting.  ASEAN and the Republic of Korea (hereinafter Korea)  had signed 
the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation on 13 December 2005  under 
which they had concluded the Agreement on 21 November 2007 . The Agreement had entered into 
force for all Parties on 14 October 2010. Building on existing WTO commitments under the GATS, 
the Agreement provided  for the progressive liberalization of trade in services between the Parties 
through substantial sectoral coverage  on all modes o f supply. The Agreement improved  market  
access for service providers of ASEAN members  and Korea on a wide range of service secto rs, 
including business, construction, education, communication, environmental, tourism and transport 
services.  
1.5.  The Agreement contained 32 articles and was divided into four chapters. Chapte r I provided  
for definitions and the scope of the Agreement applica ble to measures affecting trade in services. 
Chapter II contained  the main obligations and disciplines imposed on the Parties, including 
transparency, domestic regulations, recognition, monopolies and exclusive service suppliers, 
business practices, safegu ards, payments and transfers, and exception p rovisions. Chapter III 
addressed  the Parties' specific commitments covering market access and national treatment, as 
well as additional commitments. Chapter IV deal t with final and institutional provisions. The 
Agreement also contain ed an Annex on financial services. The GA TS Annex on telecommunications 
was also incorporated into the Agreement.  
1.6.  The services sector had continue d to grow in ASEAN economies. As of 2016, services 
represented between 37% and 74% of AS EAN members ' GDP. ASEAN's  export s of services  had WT/REG287/M/ 1 
 
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  grown from US$113.4 billion in 2005 to US$326.8 billion in 2016 while import s had increased from 
US$140.8 billion to US$316.6 billion. ASEAN countries recognized that trade in services played  a 
key role in their development as it provided  indispensable inputs for other sectors of the economy, 
contributing to economic growth and job creation. ASEAN attached  great importance to further 
liberalization and promotion of the services sector in the region to enable  ASEAN members to 
realize the full benefits offered by trade in services.  
1.7.  The year 2017 marked the 10th anniversary of the Agreement  which ha d played a vital role in 
further strengthening ASEAN -Korea relations, especially in trade and investment. Since the  FTA 
between ASEAN and Korea came into force in  2007, bilateral trade value had  increased more than 
90% to US$118.84 billion in 2016, up from US$61.81 billion in 2006, making Korea the fifth 
largest trading partner of ASEAN. In addition, Korea's foreign di rect investment in ASEAN had  
expanded from US$1.7 billion in 2011 to US$5.7 billion in 2016, making Korea ASEAN's  fifth 
largest source of FDI. With the full implementation of the Agreement , both Parties had agreed to 
further enhance economic relations by b oosting two -way trade to reach US$200 billion by 2020.  
1.8.  ASEAN was fully committed to the rules -based multilateral trading system under the WTO. 
Through the collective effort of liberalizing and expanding trade in services in the region, the 
Agreement compl emented and strengthened  the multilateral framework towards progressive 
liberalization of trade in services.  
1.9.  She thank ed all Members for the consideration of the Agreement and the Secretariat for the 
hard work in preparing the factual presentation. She al so thanked  Korea for the fruitful 
collaboration during the preparation of the meeting. She appreciate d the interest shown by 
Members, including the EU, Canada, Chile, China, the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, 
Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu ( hereinafter Chinese Taipei)  and the United States who had submitted 
written questions. She hoped that the answers provided before the meeting would help to clarify 
the various points that had been raised. She was happy to forward any further questions from 
Members to the respective capitals to respond in due course.  
1.10.   The representative of the Republic of Korea  thanked the Secretariat for preparing the 
Committee meeting and the factual presentation, as well as Members for their interest and 
insightful questions regarding  the Agreement. He also thank ed ASEAN members for their active 
cooperation in preparing for the S ession of the CRTA . Korea saw great merit in the transparency 
mechanism in the CRTA  which kept  Members informed of recent developments in other Members ' 
region al trade agreements and provided opportunities for a deeper understanding of the 
agreements . He hoped that the S ession would help Members to better understand the Agreement.  
1.11.   After the commencement of the negotiations of the Agreement in February 2005, Korea and 
ASEAN had officially signed the deal in November 2007, brought it into force in May 2009, and ha d 
been implementing it since then.  
1.12.   The Agreement, which was one of Korea's  model FTAs  with a positive list approach, included  
the general liberalization principles of national treatment and market access. The Agreement also 
included  regulatory disciplines such as transparency, domestic regulation, recognition, payments 
and transfers, and annexes on financial services and telecommunica tions. The Agreement aimed to 
achieve further liberalization by stipulating the possibility of successive rounds of negotiations for 
progressive liberalization after the entry into force of the Agreement and having a biennial joint 
review mechanism for improvements in market access and the development of additional 
disciplines. As services liberalization was being discussed through other channels , including the 
Regional Com prehensive Economic Partnership , discussions  related to progressive liberalization 
had been  dormant. However, Korea believed  that it would work as a useful mechanism to deepen 
the services and investment trade relations between Korea and ASEAN in the future.  
1.13.   With regard s to the level of services commitments, most ASEAN members and Korea had 
made concessions going beyond their respec tive GATS commitments. Korea had  made notable 
improvements in legal services, services incidental to agriculture, consulting services related to 
fishing , construction, higher education, and environmental servic es. The inclusion of such 
comprehensive services commitments had been  meaningful from both Parties . Services 
liberalization between the Parties would contribute to not only services trade itself  but also goods WT/REG287/M/1  
 
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  trade and investment by strengthening global v alue chain s with improved access to basic 
facilitati ng services such as finance, transport, and communication s. 
1.14.   Since the entry into force of the Agreement in June 2007, the volume of bilateral trade 
between Korea and ASEAN had increased by 66% from $72 bi llion in 2007 to $119 billion in 2016. 
He was confident that the trend would continue in the future .  
1.15.   Korea and ASEAN had been  negotiating to upgrade the agreement in various areas, 
including goods, services and investment with a goal to maximize its effec ts so that both countries 
could enjoy additional benefits.  
1.16.   He thank ed all Members for their participation in the S ession and the Secretariat for its hard 
work. He a ppreciate d that Members had sent their written questions before the C ommittee  
meeting . Korea  and ASEAN had done  their best to provide detailed answers so as to enhance 
transparency. He encouraged Members to ask further questions , if any,  and he would make an 
effort to reply as soon as possible.  
1.17.   The representative of the European Union  thanked th e Partie s for the detailed presentations  
on the Agreement  and the Secretariat for the hard work in the drafting of the factual presentation. 
The EU had submitted some advance questions to Korea on the sectoral coverage in the category 
of contractual ser vices suppliers as well as sought Korea's views on  sector specific commitments 
and on the deepening  of the regulatory sections. She thank ed Korea for the detailed replies.  
1.18.   The representative of the United States  thank ed the Parties and the Secretariat for the hard 
work in preparing the report and conducting the review. He was disappointed in the delay in the 
review of the goods part of the Agreement and he hoped that the Parties would take action to 
submit the necessary data so that a piece of an important agreement  could be review ed in a 
timely manner. The United States had submitted some advance questions and appreciate d the 
responses received. The Agreement appeared to offer only modest improvements in market access 
and national treatment commitments relative to GATS commitments and, in some respect s, it was 
moving in a "GATS minus " direction through the absence  of an MFN obligation in comparison to 
more recent FTAs . The Agreement lacked  many important features including the more ambitious 
negative  list approach to market access and national treatment, a forward looking MFN obligation , 
a broader coverage of cross -border financial services and additional disciplines on 
telecommunications . The Agreement wou ld have been strengthen ed if e-commerce and delivery 
services had been covered and improved. With respect to the United States'  advance question on 
the built -in agenda for services, the United States' practice of applying a negative list and ratchet 
mechanism for national treatmen t as w ell as an MFN obligation enabled  future liberalization to be 
capture d automatically without reopening  the negotiations. That was an approach that the Parties 
could pursue in the future. He urged ASEAN members to notify or clarify the content of the ir non-
notified agreements, namely the ASEAN Framework Agreement  on Services and the Asia -Pacific 
Trade Agreement . It would be helpful to receive the notifications for those agreements and reviews 
to be undertaken.  
1.19.   The representative of Japan  thank ed the Secretariat and the Parties for preparing the 
factual presentation and the meeting. Regarding commitments  by ASEAN members , Japan had  
similar comments to those of the United States: a lthough he welcome d the improvement of 
commitments in terms of trade in ser vices, some of the commitments by some ASEAN members 
appear ed to be less than those under the GATS. According to the reply to Canada's questions, the 
Agreement  had been concluded before the accession of those  countries to the WTO. Japan would 
follow how th e Parties implement ed and operate d both the A greement and the GATS since the 
Parties were important trading partners for Japan.  
1.20.   The representative of  Chinese Taipei  thanked  the Parties for their responses and the 
Secretariat for the hard work.  
1.21.   The representative of  Chile thanked Korea and ASEAN members for the answers to Chile's 
specific questions.  
1.22.   The representative of Canada  thank ed the Parties for the response to the questions.  WT/REG287/M/ 1 
 
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  1.23.   The representative of the Republic of Korea  thanked Members for the a dditional questions. 
He would convey the questions to Capital and get back to the concerned Members through the 
Secretariat in due time.   
1.24.   The Chairman  said that consideration of the Services  Aspects of the Free Trade Agreement 
between the ASEAN and Korea  had allowed the Committee to clarify a number of questions and it 
could now conclude oral discussion of the RTA in accordance with paragraph 11 of the 
Transparency Mechanism. If any delegations wished to ask follow -up questions they were invited 
to forward submissions in writing to the Secretariat by 16 April 2018  and Parties were asked to 
submit replies in writing by no later than 30 April 2018 . In accordance with paragraph  13 of the 
Transparency Mechanism all written submissions, as well as minutes of the meeting would be 
circulated promptly, in all WTO  official languages, and would be made available on the WTO 
website.  
1.25.   The Committee took note  of the comments made  
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