Venue of Korea-U.S. business meeting changed to Washington

SEOUL, March 11 (Yonhap) -- This year's annual meeting of the Korea-U.S. Business
Council will be held May 19-20 in Washington, D.C., instead of Seoul as
originally planned, a Korean business executive said Thursday.

Chung Byung-chul, vice chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI),
told reporters that business circles of the two countries have recently agreed on
the venue change for their bilateral business council meeting in consideration of
the need to promote an early approval of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement.
The FKI is the South Korean secretariat of the annual business council meeting
launched in 1988.
Seoul and Washington signed the free trade deal in June 2007, but the
legislatures of both nations have yet to ratify it.
South Korea has called for the FTA's ratification by this summer, while U.S.
officials have said they want to first address the imbalance in auto trade and
restricted shipments of U.S. beef to South Korea.
ycm@yna.co.kr
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