Korea, EU fail to reach connection point

Shipbuilding conflicts between Korea and the EU (European Union) could not find any solution, even in ministerial-level talks.

Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) minister, Shin Kukhwan, discussed with visiting European Commissioner for Trade, Pascal Lamy, how to figure out a solution for the bilateral shipbuilding frictions on the morning of Feb. 15th in the Hotel Shilla, downtown Seoul.

Both sides agreed to continue working-level talks in the meeting to resolve shipbuilding conflicts in their early stages, however, they failed to resolve their views on the "cost analysis" filing from the EU, the most obstructive issue.

Lamy insisted on the old opinion of "cost analysis" for deciding shipbuilding charges, asserting order growths in the Korean shipbuilding industry were accounted for by dumping on the back of government subsidies.

Minister Shin called for a withdrawal of cost analysis because there was no case for it in international customs, and stressed that the Korean shipbuilding industry got its competitiveness from efforts to improve productivity and declining material costs and the won's depreciation since the currency crisis.

A participant in the meeting said that Lamy basically wanted Korea to try hard to raise shipbuilding costs, and did not wish to take shipbuilding matters to the WTO.