The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry said Wednesday that free trade agreements benefit domestic companies that export products to the U.S. and Europe.

From May 7-10, KCCI conducted a survey for 600 companies that export both to the U.S. market and the European market. The survey inquires whether these companies can actually benefit from the free trade agreements.

According to the survey, 68 percent of the companies found Korea-EU FTA helpful, and 59 percent found Korea-U.S. FTA favorable to their export operations.

The same survey states that most of the 600 companies think that business conditions to export products to Europe and the U.S. have been aggravated. About 62 percent of these companies answered that exporting to the U.S. market has been aggravated and 63.6 percent said that exporting to the European market has become more difficult.

The survey also shows that orders for exports increased 18.6 percent under the Korea-EU FTA and 5.2 percent under the Korea-U.S. FTA. KCCI officials explained that the Korea-U.S. FTA has less impact in the export growth solely because the free trade pact came into effect nine months later than the Korea-EU FTA. The gap will be narrowed in the long run, the officials added.

“It has been less than a year since the FTA was enacted and it is already drawing positive results in increasing exports to overseas markets,” the KCCI said. “But companies should keep strengthening the quality and technology to become globally successful, instead of settling for tariff cuts from the FTA.”

The survey also pointed out several of government’s next assignment for further improvement. 43.5 percent of the participating companies answered that the government should be stricter with forcing companies to unclose place of manufacture. 40.1 percent wanted stronger support in entering foreign markets, and 13.2 percent called to raise more FTA experts.

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)