Beijing and Seoul have had several trade negotiations with each other in the past year. (Photo : Reuters)
China and South Korea are getting closer to implementing a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with a draft agreement, the two nations announced on Wednesday, with plans to sign the agreement in the first half of 2015.
China and South Korea confirmed the draft agreement with all FTA negotiations completed, China's Commerce Ministry (MOFCOM) announced on its website.
The draft was written in English and will be translated into Chinese and Korean before being signed, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported on Wednesday.
According to the Commerce Ministry website, the bilateral FTA, which covers 17 fields ranging from e-commerce to government procurement, will eliminate tariffs on 90 percent of all products traded between China and South Korea.
New provisions were also added into the agreement, Yonhap reported.
The latest FTA contains a clause which bans both countries from increasing or adopting new customs duties on products or services, Woo Tae-hee, South Korea's deputy trade minister, said to the press.
Yonhap also stated in its report that South Korean officials see the FTA as the most important trade deal for the country, with China being its biggest trade partner.
According to data from China's General Administration of Customs, trade between China and South Korea was valued at $290.5 billion in 2014 with a 5.9-percent increase in annual growth.
"In addition to tariff reduction, the two countries will also benefit from complementary industries to reach a win-win result," said Bai Ming, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.
"The two countries have advantages in different industries, such as South Korea's electronics manufacturing and China's textiles production."
"Common free trade agreements usually only reduce or remove tariff or non-tariff barriers for commodity trade, but the China-South Korea FTA is a high-level and comprehensive one which also includes investment and services trade," said He Weiwen, co-director of the China-US-EU Study Center under the China Association of International Trade.
China has had six rounds of trade negotiations with South Korea and Japan as of the end of 2014, with Japan backing out of a joint proposal from China and South Korea in December late that year.
