The Republic of Korea’s Trade Adjustment Policies and their Effects on Labour Market Adjustment

The Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea) has been actively opening its markets since the early 1990s, making its first bilateral trade agreement with Chile effective from 3 April 2004. It has since arranged such agreements with 52 countries that now cover more than 77 per cent of the world’s GDP. Given the little progress made in multilateral negotiations under the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), much of the progress in market liberalization has taken the form of regional trade agreements (RTAs). It has been through an extensive network of these arrangements, with partners such as the EU, the US and the People’s Republic of China (hereafter China), that the Korean Government has been pursuing sustained growth.