India pushes for access to pros in South Korea

NEW DELHI: India is looking forward to increased market access for Indian professionals in South Korea as part of the India-Korea comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA), which is under negotiation now.

New Delhi has urged Seoul to enter into mutual recognition agreements in a large number of service sectors including tele-communication, tourism, transport, audio-visual, accountancy, architecture, information technology, software, construction and engineering.

While South Korea is keen on MRAs for sectors like IT, software and construction, sources said that India will need to negotiate hard to get concessions in other sectors. When countries enter into MRAs, they recognise qualification certificates awarded to professionals in each other’s countries making it easier for service providers to enter the market of the partner country.

Officials said that although the joint study group (JSG) report has recommended MRAs in a host of sectors, negotiators from South Korea appeared to move slow in these areas in the subsequent meetings of the trade negotiations committee (TNC). “It appears that they want to use services as a bargaining chip, while negotiating other aspects like goods and investment. We are optimistic that the final agreement will be quite agreeable to Indian professionals,” an official said.

To remove barriers to trade in services, the JSG has come up with a string of recommendations. It calls for inclusion of all services sectors and all modes of supply being covered by the General Agreement on Trade in Services under the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The JSG report states that commitments by both countries will cover a wide range of service sectors with special emphasis on areas like software and IT-related services, financial services, telecommunication, transport and construction services.

As per plans, the CEPA is to be concluded by the end of ’07. Important issues like negative lists (list
of items to be excluded from the bilateral agreement) and rules of origin are yet to be sorted out.