Analysis of Korea-China FTA: Focusing on Trade Remedies Provisions

This paper analyzes the trade remedies provisions of Korea-China FTA with a view to exploring a useful guidance for effective implementation. First, we examine the FTA’s trade remedies rules. Then, we evaluate the rules in comparison with the relevant WTO agreements and the trade remedies provisions of two countries’ other FTAs. We find some notable progress and certain limitations. There are some WTO-plus provisions which are deemed to be progress. They include the requirement to notify information for global safeguard investigation, introduction of specific timeline of the notice of receipt of anti-dumping application and the explicit prohibition of zeroing practice. On the other hand, for the effective implementation, we need to specify substantive procedural rules for the bilateral safeguard investigation, and to clarify certain terms such as “all pertinent information” to be notified for global safeguard investigation and “the essential facts” to be disclosed after the imposition of provisional anti-dumping or countervailing duty and before their final determination.