‘South Korea should Open up Legal Service Market and Eliminate Business Regulations’

On June 1, two days ahead of this year’s finance ministers’ meeting between South Korea and the United States, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert said that business regulations found nowhere but in South Korea are hindering the pursuit of free trade.

He mentioned deregulation as a main task for the creation of dynamic and innovative business environments based on the KORUS FTA.

“Both countries still have to deal with the remaining parts of the FTA including legal service market opening,” he said. At present, some U.S. politicians are asserting that South Korea is still slow in the progress of KORUS FTA fulfillment when it comes to legal service market opening, pricing of drugs imported from the United States.

 “The KORUS FTA has made a great contribution to the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers, but South Korea is still an environment where doing business is not easy,” he explained, adding, “I believe South Korea and the U.S. have done well but can do better in the future for a complete fulfillment of the free trade deal.”

He continued to remark that they need to make efforts so that the common economic values formed by their bilateral cooperation can be spread to multilateral regimes such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).