If a preferential trade agreement is a spatially confined form of economic integration between countries aiming at reducing tariffs for certain products and services in their bilateral or multilateral trade, it can affect trade flows and resource allocation. The Korea-EU free trade area agreement is rather comprehensive, since only a few agricultural products would avail of some specific treatments. The aims of this paper are: to evaluate the effects on agricultural and agrifood trade; to analyse whether this agreement inserts itself in the current trade structure by consolidating it, or whether it will enable a diversification of two-way trade and to verify if the agreement is able to solve some disputes. It will compare the Korea-EU FTA with other similar agreements, and, moreover, by using a number of statistical indicators, the prospective impact of the agreement is assessed at a refined level of analysis. In the case of the Korea-EU FTA, even if the main stakes are in the services sector, and in the machinery and chemical industries, agricultural and food products are strategic, today more than never because of the food security issue and because of climate change effects.
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