S Korea, China to hold 14th FTA talks

South Korea and China are set to hold the 14th round of talks for the bilateral free trade agreement ( FTA) this week to discuss and conclude the remaining issues, Seoul 's trade ministry said Monday.

The supposedly last round of negotiations will be held on Thursday in Beijing, where South Korean Trade Minister Yoon Sang- jick and Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng will meet and intensively discuss the remaining issues, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The two countries had already completed negotiations on eight out of the total 22 chapters, including trade remedy, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS), technical barriers to trade (TBT), competition, environment and e-commerce.

Another eight chapters, which the two sides came close to an agreement, included customs clearance, investment, transparency, communications, rules and intellectual property rights.

Goods liberalization, the core part of the FTA negotiations, was involved in the remaining six issues that the two trade ministers will intensively discuss this week to reach the FTA deal. The issues also included liberalizing service markets, non-tariff barriers, rules of origin, finance and economic cooperation.

Negotiations for the bilateral trade pact gained momentum after Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Seoul and talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye in July, when the two leaders agreed to make efforts to conclude the negotiations within this year.

China and South Korea had completed the first stage of the FTA talks in September last year with a total of seven rounds of negotiations.

China is South Korea's No.1 trading partner, largest export destination and import source, and No.1 destination of overseas investment. South Korea is China's third-largest trading partner. Trade between the two countries surpassed 270 billion dollars in 2013, an annual increase of 7 percent and equaling to South Korea' s trade volume with the United States and Japan combined.