Pakistan, Korea inch toward free trade agreement

Pakistan and Korea are determined to launch a free trade agreement (FTA) following an ongoing feasibility study hoping to capitalize on each other’s geostrategic leverage. Seoul has recently scaled up contributions to the economic development cooperation fund from $180 to $500 million, under which the Korea Exim bank has agreed to establish an information and communications technology park in Islamabad. A government-to-government project with anticipated investments by Korean firms, the scheme is worth over a million dollars.