1. BILATERAL/MULTILATERAL ISSUES

Trio of ruling party lawmakers to hold series of meetings in U.S. to pitch for FTA [English, CSY]

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2011/06/06/43/0301000000AEN20110606001100315F.HTML

Summary: A trio of ruling party lawmakers plans to hold a series of meetings and events in the United States this week to make a pitch for the ratification of a free trade agreement, sources said Monday.   The group of three -- Reps. Nam Kyung-pil, Gu Sang-chan and Hong Jung-wook of the Grand National Party -- are leading members of the National Assembly's foreign affairs and trade committee and strong supporters of the FTA with the U.S.    The trade pact, signed in 2007 and supplemented last December, has been awaiting approval from the legislatures of the two countries. Prospects of its passage through Congress have risen in recent months as Washington has been making a push for its approval.

<FTA> A gov’t that’s often lost in translation [English, CSY]

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2937177

Summary: The embarrassing translation errors in Korea’s free trade agreements have revealed the government’s weakness in translation skills and a startling overconfidence in its civil servants’ foreign language abilities.  The shoddy work in translating the Korea-EU free trade agreement brought the situation to light. The original Korean version of the FTA submitted to the National Assembly contained 207 errors. Alarmed, the government turned its attention to the more politically sensitive FTA with the U.S. After the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade hired three professional translators and posted the agreement online for the public to read, it found 296 errors in 1,259 pages, one error for every five pages. The errors included 166 mistranslations, nine grammatical errors and 65 omissions.

Korea, China, Japan free trade forum opens [English, CSY]

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2937120

Summary: Representatives of think tanks from Korea, China and Japan promised to work together to promote a regional free trade agreement at a trade forum in southern Seoul yesterday.   At the first “Korea, China, Japan Economic and Trade Forum” at COEX in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, the three sides said it is important for the private sector to show support for working together towards a free trade deal.  They said economic integration between the three countries is the ultimate goal.   Korea hosted the first event and Oh Young-ho, vice chairman of the Korea International Trade Association, led the discussions yesterday.

Cabinet approves Korus FTA [English, CSY]

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2937119

Summary: The cabinet approved a new ratification bill for the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) yesterday after fixing translation errors in the Korean text of the deal, the government said.   The previous bill was submitted to the National Assembly in October 2008, about a year after the two countries signed the FTA.   But the Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee retracted the bill last month after multiple translation errors were discovered in the Korean text of the agreement.   The new ratification motion includes the corrected version of the text as well as terms of a supplementary deal reached last December to reflect U.S. demands that Korea soften its automotive safety and environmental standards, the government said.

2. MARKETING ISSUES

Food prices rise higher than others [English, CSY]

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2937223

Summary: Local food product costs rose twice as fast as national consumer prices in May, fueling inflationary concerns that could exert a negative influence on economic growth, a government report showed yesterday.   The joint report by the Bank of Korea (BOK) and Statistics Korea showed prices of 38 staples such as pork fatback cuts, various traditional stews and noodles shot up by more 8 percent last month compared to the year before.   This, it said, is far higher than the 4.1 percent rise in the country’s consumer prices tallied for the cited month.   “Prices of fatback pork rose 14.5 percent on-year, with numbers for other everyday foods like kimchi stew and naengmyeon, or cold buckwheat noodles, jumping 8.8 percent and 8.9 percent, each in the cited month,” the report said. It said that such high gains could exert overall inflationary pressure.

Koreans feel bite of food inflation [English, CSY]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2011/06/123_88413.html

Summary: Restaurant bills are becoming outrageous and global food prices are hitting new highs as rampant food inflation looks to hit Korean consumers over the next few months.  The price of imported wheat has nearly doubled since last year, while the prices of meat have jumped significantly due to the devastating foot-and-mouth outbreak of the winter, combining to dramatically elevate the cost of eating out.  Food prices have rose inexorably throughout the year and remain some of the biggest contributors to inflation, which has been at least a point above the government’s 3 percent target for five consecutive months through May.    Poor harvests were blamed for food inflation in the earlier part of the year, which has policymakers hopeful that the prices will come down once crops improve after some warmer weather.    However, there is only so much cheaper fruits and vegetables can do when the price pressures have fully extended to the services sector, adding to the fears that eating costs are spiraling out of control.

Grocery prices carousel never stops spinning [English, CSY]

‘Basically, because of bad spring weather, we expect less than half the fruit as in previous years’

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2937176

S. Korea's farm, food product exports jump 34.3 pct this year [English, CSY]

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2011/06/06/0501000000AEN20110606000100320.HTML

Summary: South Korea's food and agricultural exports surged 34.3 percent on-year in the first five months of 2011 mainly due to a rise in demand from Japan and other Asian countries, the government said Monday.  The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said outbound shipments reached US$2.82 billion in the cited period, fueled by solid overseas demand for such goods as ginseng, processed food and various beverages.