Korea’s Minister for Trade, Inkyo Cheon,g and Serbia’s Minister of Domestic and Foreign Trade, Tomislav Momirović, have jointly launched negotiations for a Korea-Serbia Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in Seoul, announcing Korea’s first trade negotiations with a Balkan country. In conjunction with the launch of negotiations, MOTIE also held a business conference with Korean companies operating in the Serbian market.
The UK Department for International Trade has announced a new UK Global Tariff (UKGT). Announced on 19 May 2020, this replaces the EU’s Common External Tariff on 1 January 2021 at the end of the Brexit Transition Period. As it pertains to the tyre business, while there are various categories, the announcement basically means the new UKGT sees tyre duty reduced from 4.5% to 4.0%. Camel back rubber for use in retreading stays at 0%, while duties cushion industrial tyres are reduced to 2.0% from 2.5%.
The growing strength of the automotive relationship between the UK and South Korea has been highlighted today by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) during its trade mission to the country.
As the government moves towards its April 2017 article 50 declaration, the automotive industry is calling on politicians to ensure the car business is left with the structures it needs to prosper.
With this in mind the RMI is specifically calling for a free trade deal to support the industry’s future: “With the UK in a period of uncertainty, we are urging government to engage with all sectors in our industry to prevent any uncertainty, encourage confidence and enable investment”, said RMI board member Colin Parlett, speaking at this year’s retail motor industry federation annual dinner in London tonight (20 October 2016).
It seems reports of the demise of the Department for Transport (DfT) were over stated. On 16 July – coincidently the day of the annual TyreSafe briefing – the new post-Brexit UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, embarked on a cabinet reshuffle. As it turned out this was no simple parlour shuffle, but a full-on single-hand pharaoh shuffle. As heads rolled and others moved in, while still others moved around, unnamed sources told The Telegraph that the Department for Transport (DfT) was being shut down. At the time, it looked like the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Energy and Climate Change were also being axed to make way for more streamlined departments for Industry and Infrastructure.
On 15 October EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton and Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon initialled a free trade agreement (FTA), which the EU calls “the most important ever negotiated between the European Union and a third country.” Estimated to be worth a total of 19 billion euros in new trade for EU exporters, the agreement is designed to remove virtually all tariffs between the two economies.
However, it is a bilateral deal. And European carmakers, apparently fearful of being swamped by imports of more economically priced Korean cars in an already depressed market, were the first to call for a rethink through industry body ACEA. However this appears to have been too little too late and according to the commission, the initialling signals the end of negotiations. The current “stable legal text” will be formally presented to EU Member States in early 2010. So what does this mean for the European tyre (and associated product) markets?
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