Roberto Azevedo, director-general of World Trade Organization, will visit Korea on Thursday and Friday, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Wednesday.

On the invitation from Trade Minister Yoon Sang-jick, Korean Azevedo is expected to meet high-ranking officials who will determine how widely to open up the country’s rice market. “Azevedo is expected to share his views on trade issues including ways to boost multilateral trade arrangements, negotiations for the Doha Development Agenda and others,” the ministry said.

Azevedo will lecture at Seoul National University and the Institute of Global Economics and meet with the speaker of the National Assembly. He will also meet with Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Trade Minister Yoon and Agriculture Minister Lee Dong-phil.

Trade and agricultural ministries are scheduled to decide on whether the country will eliminate all tariffs for the rice market from next year, or request another postponement or waiver.

Under an agreement made at the Uruguay Round in 1994, Korea’s rice market was fully protected from 1995 to 2004. Then it implemented a 400,000-ton rice import quota from 2005 up to this year.

If Korea requests another postponement of the tariff elimination ― which would require extra approval by 159 WTO member states ― then the import quota would likely have to be raised, insiders say.

The WTO was established in 1995 to supervise and liberalize international trade under its General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Korea joined the WTO in 1995.

(baejisook@heraldcorp.com)