Ficci wants more access to S Korean market

Industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) has called for greater access to Indian companies in the South Korean services sector.

This comes at a time when both the counties are about to start the ninth round of negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) involving goods, services and investments from December 18.

A Ficci statement has pointed that in the free trade negotiations with the United States, Korea has significantly improved upon its commitments in the World Trade Organisation in virtually all major service sectors. .

" It would be in the interest of Indian industry to secure concessions and market access for our service providers, which would be higher than Korea's present level of WTO commitments," the statement said.

The industry chamber also pointed that 60.5 per cent of the Korean service sector was dominated by transportation and services.

Ficci said Korea's imports of services grew by 12 per cent during 2000-06 and stood at $70.6 billion in 2006.

"However, India occupies just a marginal share of this and the bulk of Korea's total services imports come from the US (25.4 per cent share), EU (15.2 per cent), Japan (15.1 per cent) and China (13.1 per cent).

According to Ficci, India should aim at enhanced market access in IT/ITeS, audio-visual, architecture, accountancy, construction-related engineering sectors.

The chamber also appealed to the government to take up issues pertaining to movement of professionals in the fields of business visitors, intra-corporate transferee, contractual service suppliers and independent professionals with Korea.