Martin Uden

Mandelson makes an impression

I have missed writing my blog, having been away on leave and on business and then just recently catching up with what I'd missed and then preparing for a visit by Lord Mandelson.  He was in Korea on 6-8 October in his capacity as the UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.  I've been hoping to secure a visit from one of the Ministers in his department ever since I arrived, because the work that the UK Trade and Investment part of the Embassy does here is tremendously important and it can get a great boost from a well-timed and well-prepared visit.  Of course we did have a visit by the Duke of York in October last year, but politicians can do some things that members of the Royal Family can't do, and vice versa.

[Photos show, from clockwise top right: Lord Mandelson meets Korea's President Lee Myung-bak; breakfast meeting with Korean business leaders; meeting Korea's Minister of Knowledge Economy, Choi Kyung-hwan; and delivering a keynote speech to the British Chamber of Commerce Korea and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry]

For Lord Mandelson, the two major themes were the EU/Korea Free Trade Agreement and work on G20 issues.  When Lord Mandelson was the EU Trade Commissioner he kicked off the negotiations for the Agreement here in Seoul, and now it is due to be initialed on 15 October, signifying that the negotiations have reached the point where both sides are happy with the text.  But of course agreeing texts is one thing; making sure that they achieve the desired goal of encouraging and facilitating trade and investment between the EU and Korea is another.  For that we need to be sure that EU and Korean businesses can see the opportunities and act on them.  This is the message Lord Mandelson was sending, and is one we need to keep repeating to be sure UK business knows of the greater opportunities that will be available. We estimate that the FTA will generate up to 13 billion Euros(￡ 11.82 billion) for Korean companies, and generate exporting opportunities for EU goods and services of up to 19 billion Euros (￡17.27 billion).

The G20 continues to offer a great chance for the UK and Korea to work together to help forge what the G20 Leaders at the Pittsburgh Summit described as "the premier forum for our international economic cooperation". Now it is agreed that not only will Korea take over from us as G20 Chair, but it will also host a Summit here in November 2010. Korea will have a major role in the early days of this new forum, and if the UK can help in any way, I'm sure we will.  Not only will we see ministerial interactions like Lord Mandelson's, but President Lee has also accepted Gordon Brown's offer to have one of his closest advisers, Baroness Shriti Vadera, to act as a adviser for Korea in helping the transition from one Presidency to the next.

Posted at 12:12 13 October 2009 by Martin Uden  |  Comments[0]

EU/Korea Free Trade Agreement

 The EU and Korea managed to make sufficient progress in the last week on the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations to be able to say that we have a deal. There are always formalities to go through – and the example of the US/Korea FTA shows clearly that these are not always pure formalities – but it does look as though we’re there. Certainly at some points in the two years of negotiations it almost looked as though we had run out of steam, but the concept of an agreement between two such important trading partners always made a lot of sense. For both the EU and Korea, once it’s in force it will be the largest FTA (in terms of trade volumes) for both countries.

I haven’t seen the complete deal as yet, but bringing down tariffs in so many areas is bound to increase trade for both sides which will be good news for consumers, whether of Korean electronic goods in the EU, or European beverages in Korea. There are also a wide range of other measures designed to make it easier to trade and do business on both sides. The opportunities the agreement will offer will be a very important area of business for the Embassy in the coming months - and for all the EU Embassies in Seoul, I’m sure.

Posted at 16:21 15 July 2009 by Martin Uden  |  Comments[2]