The third round of Korea-US FTA negotiations will be held in Seattle on September 6, 2006.
Both sides show harsh variation in the textile sector where Korea is highly competitive.
Conservative proposal has been presented by the US while Korea announced a plan for aggressive tariff cuts.
The US proposed a five-tier lifting of the tariffs for textiles including timeframes of immediately, within three years, within five years, within 10 years and the exception.
Korea presented a proposal of three-tier lifting including timeframes of immediately, within three years and within five years.
The US would like to eliminate all tariffs on its agricultural goods within 10 years, thereby urging Korea to carry out the same level of market opening in a roundabout way.
Nevertheless, Korea has been making it clear that the opening of its rice market is out of consideration and with regard to other agricultural goods, it will try to postpone the market opening for up to 15 years.
Thus, it is expected that negotiators will have hard time narrowing their differences of positions.
Korea would strongly appeal the US that sensitive items in the agricultural sector should be excluded from the market opening or if they are included, they should set a long timeframe for the implementation of tariff elimination.
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