CMC Calls for Public Support for Quick Adoption of Canada-South Korea FTA

By Bruce Cochrane

The Canadian Meat Council is encouraging the public to impress upon their members of Parliament the importance of quick adoption of the Canada South Korea Free Trade Agreement.

Last month the federal government tabled the text of the Canada-South Korea Free Trade Agreement in the House of Commons opening the door for possible adoption by January 1st.

Ron Davidson, the director of international trade, government and media relations with the Canadian Meat Council, notes the council had been pushing hard for the completion of negotiations and now that they have been completed it's pressing for as early as possible adoption.

Ron Davidson-Canadian Meat Council:
We are behind the implementation of free trade agreements that Korea has signed with other countries including the United States and each year, each anniversary year, they have a further reduction in their import tariffs so we need to participate and start getting the Canadian reductions as quickly as possible.

The agreement has to be approved both in Canada and in South Korea.

Our understanding is that both governments are working toward trying to achieve that.

We hope they'll be successful but at this point we can only hope.
The target date that we have in mind and have had in mind since the agreement in principle was reached is January 1 of next year.

We're certainly hoping that the January 1 date will be met.
If not, as soon as possible thereafter because every day counts.

We will be pushing very hard and hoping that all parties in the House of Commons will come together and agree that this is an important agreement and that we need to recover our access to that market as quickly as possible.

Davidson encourages Canadians to contact their members of Parliament and impress upon them the importance to the Canadian agri-food sector of recovering access to the South Korean market as quickly as possible.

Source: Farmscape