ABSTRACT
India and South Korea signed a free trade agreement (FTA), officially known as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, on 7 August 2009. The pact envisages that the two countries will abolish or cut tariffs for 90 per cent of Indian goods and 85 per cent of South Korean products by 2019. Capping three years of negotiations, the deal was signed between Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and his Korean counterpart Kim Jong-Hoon in Seoul. 1 The deal was eventually ratified by the South Korean National Assembly on 6 November. The deal aims to double bilateral trade over the next decade. From trade figures of $2.6 billion in 2002, India–South Korea trade shot up to $15.6 billion in 2008. 2
