As we enter 2019, an exciting period for EU-Korea relations continue to unfold, as evidenced by the strong and longstanding partnership cemented in the Free Trade Agreement that will celebrate its 8 anniversary on July 1, 2019.

Since 2011, EU-Korea trade has made impressive bounds forward. After seven years of FTA implementation trade flows according to Eurostat (Nov 2011-Oct-2018) increased both ways and while the EU (+41%) did better than Korea (+26%), the deal is clearly a win-win one. The EU is Korea's 3rd largest trading partner (also after Brexit) and the biggest source of Foreign Direct Investments stock in South Korea (32% of total South Korea FDI stock); the ratio for Seoul is nearly 50%. However, after Brexit the EU may become the second largest investor after Japan.

The free trade agreement is being implemented smoothly and the overwhelming majority of issues have been solved in the first 5 years of implementation. We are working on solving the few issues remaining such in the area of intellectual property and food and agricultural goods, including of course European beef.

Furthermore, our trade relationship is not only about exchanging goods and services; it is also about agreed values and commitments in trade related fields such as labour. That is why we agreed to commitments on fundamental labour standards in our trade agreement. These commitments are critical to ensure that workers are treated fairly, can exercise their rights freely and share in the benefits of our trade agreement.

I am confident this trend will continue and that the Korean authorities will continue to develop policies that are really favourable to foreign investors.

Looking back at 2018, it has been a turbulent year internationally with a great deal of uncertainty regarding BREXIT and US trade policy. On the Korean Peninsula, however, the political climate has changed, contributing to stability through diplomacy and summitry. I hope this trend will continue despite setbacks. In economic terms I would like to say 2019 will be better but that is far from certain as the risk of growing protectionism is real and the signals we hear from the US are not very encouraging. I would like to reassure EU companies that the EU remains committed to rules-based trade and that we will continue listening to the concern of EU exporting companies and supporting them. The EU and Korea are sheltered from protectionist temptations thanks to the existence of the EU-Korea FTA.

There is no protection in protectionism but there is isolation in isolationism!

Although the free trade agreement has achieved good results so far, I think we can do even better. The FTA is now nearly 8 years old and needs to be modernised in line with recent FTAs that the EU has signed with Canada and Japan.

There are new fields in which we could cooperate, such as on SME policy; in that respect, a new promising SME Policy Dialogue has been launched in February 2019. We could also improve rules on investment. There are technical and legal improvements that could be made to the text to broaden the range of different products and services that can benefit from the FTA. And there are improvements that could be made to the business of trading, for example to smoothen customs procedures and speed up certain bureaucratic procedures.

The EU is ready to discuss these issues with the Korean government.

To complement our trade relationships there are also important other fields of cooperation that should be continuously strengthened. The EU and Korea are ranked among the most innovative countries in the world, it is therefore important that cooperation on innovation, science and technology continues to expand, through the EU Horizon 2020 program, in areas such ICT (5G), AI, IoT, automated vehicles, nanotechnology, health bio-technology. 2019 will see an important milestone in this area with the launch of a new High Level Policy Dialogue on Digital Economy. It will serve as an effective bridge uniting European and Korean companies, organizations and entrepreneurs eager to explore new opportunities. We look forward to showcasing EU-Korea’s leading advantages in science and technology.

The excellent cooperation with the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea (ECCK) is very much appreciated and ECCK is playing a key role as the EU delegation's main business partner in Korea. Doing a good job is important but being unified, cooperative and visible is equally crucial. The White Paper, the Business Confidence Survey and the Annual Report are in that sense becoming reference documents to evaluate the business community's confidence in South Korea's economy.

I am confident that we will continue our fruitful cooperation in 2019 and beyond to further promote cooperation across many areas of bilateral relations and promote the interests of European businesses and investors in the Republic of Korea.