President Park Geun-hye will hold a summit with her New Zealand counterpart in Seoul next week to ink a free trade agreement aimed at expanding bilateral cooperation on economy, security and culture, the presidential office said Monday.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key is set to arrive in South Korea for a three-day trip on Sunday. The two leaders will meet on Monday at Cheong Wa Dae. Key has visited Seoul three times since 2010 and met Park twice since she entered office in 2013, officials said.

The summit will focus on ways to upgrade the bilateral relationship countries’ and seek follow-up measures to support the FTA concluded in November during the G20 summit held in Australia. The two leaders will sign the pact on Monday and request respective parliamentary endorsements afterward.

Under the pact, the two sides agreed to eliminate New Zealand’s import tariffs on 92 percent of all shipments from South Korea in terms of their value and remove all tariffs on South Korean products within seven years after the implementation of the deal. South Korea will reciprocate by removing tariffs on 96.4 percent of shipments from New Zealand over a 15-year period when the deal goes into effect.

The two sides have agreed to exclude some products from the deal, mostly agricultural goods such as rice that are considered very sensitive in South Korea.

In 2013, bilateral trade between the two countries came to $2.8 billion, making New Zealand the 44th-largest trading partner of South Korea. South Korea is New Zealand’s 41st-largest trading partner, according to the ministry.

New Zealand is the third-largest beef exporter to Korea, following Australia and the United States.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)