US to OK SKorea trade pact this year: Clinton

SEOUL: The U.S. administration has pledged to ratify a sweeping trade agreement free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea this year, the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday.

"I came here to express our deep commitment to the ratification of the KORUS (Korea-US) FTA by the end of this year," she told the American Chamber of Commerce during a visit to Seoul.

The pact will be "one of my priorities for the coming months," Clinton said.

The agreement of the United States was signed in 2007 but has yet to be ratified by the legislatures of both countries. The operation is part of the "straight line" Clinton said Saturday.

His schedule is less ambitious than the U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. In January, he hoped the agreement would win approval from Congress by July 1, when a similar trade agreement between the EU and South Korea will take effect.

The American-South Korea, which will eliminate 95 percent of tariffs between the two economies, has been controversial in both countries, with the main trade union confederation of the United States, saying that large companies would the primary beneficiary.

But the administration of President Barack Obama won last year's most recalcitrant of many in his camp in South Korea has approved revisions, including a slowdown in the elimination of U.S. tariffs on imports of cars .

However, some Republicans want two other persistent free trade pacts - with Colombia and Panama - to be pushed through along side Korea.

Clinton said the trade pact is also sending a strategic message to South Korea, a close ally of the United States when Washington bases 28,500 troops to deter North Korea.