한-중 자유무역협정(FTA) 상 경제협력 이행에 있어 국제법적 쟁점과 함의 - WTO 보조금협정을 중심으로 -

Abstract

According to the conclusion of the Korea-China FTA, it is expected that both social and economic exchange become more active. The Economic Cooperation Chapter under Korea-China FTA includes new negotiation issues─the articles for Local Economic Cooperate and Korea-China Industrial Complexes/Parks─with which Korea has never dealt before in other FTAs concluded with other countries. China already has and experience to establish industrial parks with FTA counterparts with purpose of China’s regional development. Unlike China, Korea has never discussed promoting either establishment of industrial complex jointly by two countries through a bilateral agreement, or economic cooperation between the local governments of FTA counterpart country. Accordingly, it is expected to raise several legal problems arising from implementing economic cooperation chapter in Korea-China FTA. In particular, Sae Man Geum where Korea-China FTA Industrial complex will be built is directly related to the development project of central and local governments. The governments, in order for facilitating development of this area, have providing various benefits as a policy. Additionally, the central government plans to provide another government measures such as incredible deregulation and various incentives. These measures, however, are more likely to be considered as the ‘subsidy’ regulated by WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures(SCM). This can be found easily in recent case happened in China that various incentives which Chinese government provided to special economic zone have been counted as the subsidies in the dispute. Taking into account the trend of subsidy dispute, Korea cannot completely rule out the possibility to be complained by the third country by the reason of violation of SCM agreement. Therefore, Korea needs to prepare for an effective response to the situation that may arise in the future. Thus, the paper will investigate the content of the economic cooperation stated on Korea-China FTA focused on industry complex at first. Next, after briefly studying main obligations under SCM agreement, it will examine which obligation is applied to the Sae Man Geum industry complex. The paper, finally, will analyze the legal issues related with SCM agreement when developing Korea-China FTA industry complex. Especially, it will look deep into the matter whether Korean government’s measures given to Sae Man Geum industry complex are regarded as the subsidy with ‘specificity’. Through the study, it can provide the corresponding measures for the international issues that the government should take into account when it launches policy project as well as help to prepare a subsidy dispute occurring in the future.