Effects of Free Trade Agreement between MERCOSUR and South Korea

Abstract

The relations of South Korea with Latin America were born since the first Korean immigrants went to Latin America in search of a better life or fled from conflicts after the Korean War: the government of South Korea encouraged immigration of its citizens to the region, and since 1962, a large number of South Koreans moved to Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile and Peru. Nowadays, the relations became closer with trade, and cooperation through ODA and Investment. Since 2003, the Republic of Korea has been negotiating Free Trade Agreements with more than 50 countries from Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America. So far, it has FTAs in effect with Chile, Singapore, EFTA, ASEAN, and India. Similarly, MERCOSUR signed of Trade Agreements with different economies like Israel, Egypt, India, and SACU. Through the different analysis made in this thesis, it was concluded that there has been a strong and still growing relationship between the MERCOSUR bloc and the Republic of South Korea. It has a lot of potential, from the Korean immigration to the region in the last century to the current economic relations with trade, investment and Official Development Assistance from South Korea, and that both sides should liberalize their trade among them, and by consequence, their economies and consumers will gain from this Free Trade Agreement.