SKorea ready to start free trade talks with EU next month

(SEOUL) - South Korea is ready to open talks next month with the European Union on a free trade agreement, President Roh Moo-Hyun said Wednesday.

Roh, speaking after a meeting with visiting Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, said they "shared a common understanding of the enormous economic effects" such an agreement would have.

"South Korea concluded the FTA with the US despite fierce opposition by many South Koreans," he told a joint press conference.

"But South Korea's FTA talks with the EU may not run into any significant resistance. We're ready to open talks with the EU in May."

After 10 months of tough bargaining, Seoul early this month sealed a free trade pact with Washington which scraps tariffs on thousands of items and will boost commerce by billions of dollars a year.

The negotiations sparked emotional protests during which a taxi driver set himself ablaze. Huh Se-Wook died Sunday after two weeks in hospital.

About 2,000 people rallied Wednesday to mark his death, Yonhap news agency reported. About half of them marched to a US military base in central Seoul, where Huh's ashes were strewn outside the gate. No clashes were reported.

Opinion polls earlier this month showed two out of every three South Koreans support the free trade deal with the United States, along with more than 80 percent of big companies.

But farmers and other workers who fear for their jobs, along with activists, staged a series of occasionally violent protests during the negotiations.

Roh said he and Prodi agreed to cooperate more closely in the fields of marine logistics, industrial technology, information technology and science.

Prodi, who arrived Tuesday for a three-day visit, told the news conference that Italy will positively consider offering humanitarian aid to North Korea.

South Korea, which is Asia's third-largest economy, has been holding preliminary talks with the EU for about a year. Two-way annual trade is worth 71 billion dollars compared to 78 billion dollars between Seoul and Washington.

The state-funded Korea Institute for International Economic Policy has forecast that an agreement with the EU would help South Korea expand gross domestic product by more than two percent in the short-term.