A Study on the Value Added Criterion of Rules of Origin under FTAs with the US and EU: Focusing on Automotive Sector

Purpose - This study deals with a strategic plan for meeting the value added criteria effectively, which is one of the methods of determining origin used in preferential trade such as FTA. Automobile products, one of the major Korean export items, were selected to give a practical use against the FTA requirements. Design/methodology - This study is based on the value-added criteria of the Korea-US and Korea-EU FTAs that apply various value-added criteria. The Korea-US FTA adopts the RVC method based on the integration, deduction and net cost methods, while the MC method is employed in the Korea-EU FTA. The methodology used in this work is an extended literature review, analysis of the value-added criteria applied to automobile products under Korea-US and Korea-EU FTA with some secondary statistics. Findings - Based on in - depth analysis of the value - added criteria requirements for automobile products stipulated in the Korea - US FTA and the Korea - EU FTA, two strategic considerations are suggested. First is ‘appropriate value-added strategy’ and the second is ‘strategy of changing production and trade structure’. The second strategy is a bit used in Korea but this is not considered best if the first strategy is ignored or forgotten. The second one is meaningful when this becomes inevitable. Research limitations/implications - This study is primarily designed to assist Korean auto mobile industry players exporting to EU and USA but this may help to auto part or material producers in FTA counter party territories being EU or USA as the preferential tariffs are applied on a inter region basis. A further research other than auto mobiles using other major FTAs might be followed later. Originality/value - There has been so far little research on strategic factors to meet the value-added origin requirements. This study, therefore, is expected to contribute facilitating the decision of FTA origin and to improve the utilization of FTA by allowing exporting companies using value added criterion to more smoothly meet origin requirements. This will also enable the tax authorities to utilize the value-added criterion to validate effectively the origin of imports where preferential tariffs are applied.