Free Trade
The Committee for Foreign Affairs & Unification of the National Assembly held a general meeting on Aug. 31 and laid out a Korea-China FTA ratification bill with no opposition lawmakers present. Opposition party members had said that a special committee should be organized first for a comprehensive discussion of the Korea-China FTA, given the magnitude of its impact on Korean society as a whole.
“In the Park Geun-hye administration, commerce and trade have been handed over to the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, and now the Committee for Foreign Affairs & Unification is in charge of nothing but technical procedure rather than the specific details and process of the progress of FTA ratification bills,” said New Politics Alliance for Democracy lawmaker Shin Jae-kwon, who is the opposition party secretary of the committee. He left the committee immediately after demanding the organization of the special committee.
“We tried to lay out a bill based on a mutual agreement with the opposition party, even though we were able to do so on our own according to the National Assembly Act, but the New Politics Alliance for Democracy rejected the bill from the beginning,” ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker and secretary of the committee Shin Yoon-jo criticized the opposition in response.
Experts said that the railroading of the bill by the ruling party was because of President Park Geun-hye’s visit to China scheduled for Sept. 2 to 4. In the meantime, the committee laid out two other ratification bills regarding the establishment of the Korea-Turkey free trade zone and those for the Korea-Vietnam and Korea-New Zealand FTAs on that day as well.