Korea’s Deputy Minister for FTA Negotiations Roh Keon-ki and Director General of the Department of Trade Negotiations at the Ministry of Commerce of Thailand Chotima Iemsawasdikul are leading their respective delegations in the third official negotiating round for the Korea-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) from December 17–19 in Bangkok.


In this third round, the two sides will be newly entering negotiations on communications, finance, environment, labor, and sustainable development in addition to the areas over which negotiations have already been in progress since first launched this March, such as goods, services, investment, rules of origin, government procurement, intellectual property, and cooperation.


Thailand is one of Korea’s key partner countries in ASEAN and home to numerous Korean businesses, with an industrial structure suitable for laying down a mutually complementary supply chain with Korea which further increases the two countries’ potential for bilateral industrial collaboration.


Deputy Minister Roh stated that the Korean government is actively carrying out trade negotiations with major trade partners according to plan in an effort to boost the Korean economy by promoting overseas market penetration, exports, and trade diversification for stronger global competitiveness.