Japan, EU to sign FTA

TOKYO, July 17 (KUNA) -- The Japanese government said Tuesday that Japan and the European Union (EU) are set to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) later in the day, which will cover a third of the global economy.
The announcement comes after the Cabinet made a decision to sign the pact, also known as the economic partnership agreement, earlier in the day, the Foreign Ministry said.
Based on this decision, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk will sign the trade deal in Tokyo, the ministry said. The FTA is expected to promote the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment between Japan and the EU, and will further vitalize both economies by strengthening reciprocal economic ties in wide-ranging fields, it said.
The signing ceremony was originally supposed to be held in Brussels last week, but Abe cancelled his planned visit to the Belgian capital to deal with the torrential rains that killed more than 220 people in western Japan.
The two sides launched negotiations on the deal in 2013, and reached an agreement in principle July 2017 before finalizing their consultations in December.
The agreement will eliminate about 99 percent of the tariffs on Japanese goods to the EU, and 94 percent for European imports into Japan. The pact will cover about 30 percent of the world's gross domestic product with some 600 million people in the 29 countries. (end) mk.tg