Korea and India to step bilateral trade

New Delhi, Sept 25 : At the conclusion of the 12th round of the Korea-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) held in Seoul from September 22-25, India and Korea have announced today that all outstanding issues in the negotiations have been resolved successfully.

The CEPA agreement is expected to further accelerate the growth of the flows of bilateral trade and investment between Korea and India.

Major elements of the agreement will be made public at that time. Both sides aim to sign the agreement by the end of this year after completing all domestic procedures and the agreement will come into effect from the first half of next year on a mutually agreed date.

The Korea-India CEPA negotiations started in March 2006 and a total of 12 rounds of negotiations have been held.

India and Korea are 12th and 13th largest economies in the world respectively. The bilateral trade has been growing by an average rate of around 27 per cent over the last three years and amounted to US 11.2 billion dollars in 2007.

ANI