South Korea revives CPTPP bid, seeks input from resistant farming and fishing sectors

South Korea's government has gathered opinions from farming and fishing communities ahead of a renewed push to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, as those sectors remain firmly opposed. Membership in the CPTPP is expected to significantly improve South Korea's market access to Japan and Mexico, two major economies with which it has yet to conclude a free trade agreement.

The resistance stems from the pact's sweeping liberalization requirements: existing CPTPP members have opened 99.1 percent of their goods markets, with agricultural products averaging 96.1 percent — effectively full liberalization — and many member states are major agricultural producers. The potential resumption of imports of seafood from Japan's Fukushima region is also seen as a major sticking point.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Friday that Chief Trade Negotiator Park Jeong-seong chaired an expert advisory meeting with representatives from the farming and fishing industries to collect on-the-ground views ahead of the renewed CPTPP accession push.

Park said the CPTPP is a matter of supply chain stability, economic security and export market expansion, but added that the government would "fully take into account the burden on the farming and fishing sectors that are expected to suffer losses, listen to voices from the field, and reflect them as much as possible in the review process."

Experts from the agricultural and fisheries sectors offered wide-ranging views on the anticipated impact of CPTPP accession, measures to strengthen competitiveness and domestic support, ways to expand agricultural and fisheries exports, and how the government should communicate with the industries going forward.

The CPTPP is a trade pact among 12 Pacific Rim economies — including Japan, Australia, Canada and Singapore — aimed at mutual market opening. Discussions began in 2006 and the agreement took effect in 2018. Accession requires unanimous consent from existing members.

South Korea came close to applying for membership under the Moon Jae-in administration, completing all internal government procedures, but the effort stalled at the final step — a mandatory report to the National Assembly — and ultimately fell through. The Assembly report is a required step before a formal accession application can be submitted.

At the time, the Democratic Party of Korea declined to receive the government's report on the CPTPP application, citing what it said was an insufficient analysis of the pact's impact under various scenarios.

The membership roster includes Australia, Canada and New Zealand — countries with highly competitive agricultural and livestock industries — making some degree of agricultural market opening during accession negotiations virtually unavoidable.

The average tariff elimination rate on agricultural products among CPTPP members stands at 96.3 percent, well above the 72.0 percent average for the agricultural sector across South Korea's existing FTAs. A government economic feasibility review estimated that over the 15 years following accession, annual average production losses would range from 85.3 billion to 440 billion won ($324 million) in agriculture and from 6.9 billion to 72.4 billion won in fisheries.

On the other side of the ledger, joining the CPTPP would shield South Korean companies operating in Japan and Mexico from heavy tariff burdens, as neither country has a free trade agreement with Seoul.

Mexico in particular has been levying tariffs of up to 50 percent this year on automobiles, steel and home appliances from countries without a free trade agreement, meaning that successful CPTPP accession could substantially ease the tariff burden on South Korean firms with production bases there.

A ministry official said the government plans to "continue cooperating and communicating with related ministries and experts throughout the CPTPP review process" and would "soon arrange a direct dialogue with industry as well."