This Tuesday, October 10, at 22:00 (Wednesday, October 11, 12:00 in South Korea) the signing of the Pre-Strategic Economic Cooperation Agreement (SECA) with South Korea is planned. The trade ministers of both countries will be the ones to sign the instrument, according to the General Secretariat for Communications of the Presidency.

In order to reach the signature of the SECA, according to the Government of Ecuador, this means that Korea requires the implementation of this pre-signature, which serves as a mechanism to ensure the integrity and fidelity of the agreed text, preparing it for later validation and the ratification process in each participating country. so it is a step required by Korean regulations.

The ministers of foreign affairs and production traveled to South Korea

The agreement will ensure that 98% of Ecuador’s current export supply, such as shrimp, cocoa, bananas, fishing, dairy products, among others, enters the world’s twelfth economic power. In addition, it will allow new products such as pitahaya, mango and pineapple to enter the market of 51 million consumers, according to the statement.

Ministers of Production, Foreign Trade, Investments and Fisheries Daniel Legarda and Minister of Foreign Affairs Gustavo Manrique lead the delegation that will implement the process in Seoul, where they traveled on Sunday, October 8. Initially, President Guillermo Lasso was supposed to travel, however, the President had to return to the country due to the prison crisis from the United States, where he was doing personal activities and planned to go to Seoul from there.

The executive decree ordered the ministers to “coordinate and carry out appropriate actions in the framework of the official visit and bilateral meeting between the governments of the Republic of Ecuador and the Republic of South Korea, to be held in the city of Seoul.”

In order to reach this point of the trade agreement, negotiations with South Korea resumed in February 2022, after six years of paralysis – the statement said. In March of the same year, the main negotiators determined the project task and three rounds were held during 2022.

How are the processes of Ecuador’s trade agreements with South Korea, China and Costa Rica progressing?

This year, intersessional meetings marked the agenda of negotiations in January and February. While from April 3 to 7, they held the ninth round in Seoul, which was led by the Minister of Production.

In the continuation of the process, dialogues for the official presentation of the offer were held from May to September, and last month the process of reviewing the text in English was completed.

According to the Ecuadorian government, the trade agreement seeks to promote trade, investment and cooperation in various areas. It covers a wide range of disciplines from goods to services. A general framework has also been established that enables the deepening of commercial relations, the strengthening of cooperative ties, with an emphasis on industry, culture, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as the creation of a stable legal framework for the creation of new enterprises.