S. Korea, Singapore, New Zealand report 'significant progress' in green economy trade talks

Negotiations on the Green Economy Partnership Agreement, a plurilateral pact involving South Korea, New Zealand and Singapore, have made significant progress, the three countries said Thursday. The GEPA is a plurilateral agreement led by Singapore, New Zealand and Chile, among others, to introduce new trade norms in the green economy sector. South Korea formally joined the negotiations in September.

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said the three countries held a high-level video conference Thursday to assess the state of the GEPA negotiations and announced interim results.

The three countries said they had made progress across seven areas of discussion — including trade-related climate measures, trade in environmental and low-emission products, and sustainability reporting — since GEPA participants declared the launch of negotiations on Oct. 31 last year.

On trade-related climate measures, the participating countries said they had developed the world's first module containing principles to guide the design of monitoring, reporting and verification frameworks, with the aim of addressing undue trade impacts from climate measures and strengthening companies' ability to respond.

The countries also plan to pursue expanded trade in environmental and low-emission products and deepen cooperation to improve sustainability in sectors such as aviation, construction and food systems.

Alongside norm-setting, the participants will identify practical cooperation initiatives that reflect industry needs. The government said the effort is intended to help South Korean companies operate stably amid a changing trade environment and find new export opportunities by having their low-carbon production and technology development efforts recognized in overseas markets.

"We will work closely with GEPA participants to advance the negotiations so that we can achieve the goal of sustainability while also delivering tangible results for our economy," said Kim Chang-hee, director for new trade strategy support at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.