Europe Trade Practice 2013 Koreas relation with Europe

Europe Trade Practice 2013

Koreas relation with Europe


Some European countries were active in East-Asia. They had companies for trading (“East-India-Companies”): Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, England, France.

The first Europeans who knew about the existence of Korea were the Portuguese. Since 1543 they had a trade post on the island of Hirado (Japan), where they got to know that in northwestern direction passed the island of Tsushima, there was a nation that they called Couray.


A Portuguese shipwreck victim was discovered in Jeju in 1582, but we know almost nothing about him …


The second was Gregorio de Céspedes, a Portuguese Jesuit who arrived in Busan on December 27, 1593. He was brought to Korea by Konishi Yukinaga, one of the commanding generals of the Japanese army during the Imjin War.


The Dutch ship Sperwer sailed at June 18th, 1653 from Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) with destination Taijoan in the Dutch colony Formosa (now Taiwan). In August they came in a heavy storm and shipwrecked near the island Quelpart (now Jeju-do). 36 sailors could swim to the coast, one of them was Hendrik Hamel. They were captured, brought to Seoul, later back to the south coast. 1666, after 13 years, they could escape to Japan. Hamel wrote a book about the years in Korea.


Until 1870 foreigners were not allowed to enter Korea, so it was called the „Hermit Kingdom“.

Until 1870 no Korean was allowed to go abroad. The first foreign country where Koreans settled was Russia.


From 1883 Korea established diplomatic relations with European countries: Germany, France, Russia, Great Britain and Belgium.Foreign experts came to Korea to build up new economical and and social structures .

Paul Georg von Möllendorff, who etablished 1882 a new custom-system for the Korean harbours and was ranked as a vice-minister.


Antoinette Sontag from France (center), who opened the first western hotel in Seoul.

Hotel Sontag


Eberhard Meyer from Hamburg, who opened the first western company in Korea, „Meyer & Co“ 1890 in Chemulpo (now Incheon). The company had ships and traded between Korea and China.


Under the Japanese occupation (1905 – 1945) most Europeans and European companies left Korea.


New diplomatic relations (South Korea) after 1945:

France, 1949United Kingdom, 1949Spain, 1950

Germany, 1955Italy, 1956Turkey, 1957Denmark, 1959Norway, 1959Sweden, 1959Greece, 1961Netherlands, 1961Swiss, 1962Austria, 1963Finland, 1973


With the diplomatic relations came business relations. Since 1956 bigger European companies came to Korea, for expl. Siemens from Germany.

First export products were textiles and shoes.

From the 1980th Korea startet to export electrical goods like TV, VTR, …


Imported from Europe were machinery, chemicals or luxury goods.


Koreans came to Europa for educational or economic reasons:UK: 46.000 KoreansGermany: 31.000 KoreansFrance: 15.000 Koreans

(USA: 1.700.000 Korean)

Some became famous:


From 1990 Korean companies startet factories in Europe:

Samsung, Lucky Goldstar (later LG), Daewoo, Hyundai, …







The EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA)between the EU and the South Korea is the first completed of the new generation of FTA launched by the EU in 2007. South Korea was designated a priority FTA partner in the Global Europe trade policy strategy of 2006. Global Europe argued that a comprehensive and ambitious FTA with South Korea, aiming at the highest possible degree of trade liberalisation including far-reaching liberalisation of services and investment, was clearly in the interests of both sides. The negotiations for an EU-South Korea FTA were launched in May 2007 in Seoul. After eight rounds of talks, the FTA has been initialled by both sides on 15 October 2009. On 16 September 2010 the Council approved the FTA and the Agreement has been officially signed oon 6 October 2010 in the margin of the EU-South Korea Summit in Brussels. It is provisionally applied since 1 July 2011





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Europe Trade Practice 2013 Koreas relation with Europe