Price Gouging Undermines South Korean Trade Pacts, Minister Says

South Korean consumers aren’t getting the full benefit of deals lowering trade barriers because distributors and wholesalers aren’t passing along the savings in import costs, the nation’s trade minister said.

The margins being charged by “the different layers of distribution” exceed savings from tariff cuts stipulated in free trade agreements, Bark Tae Ho said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg News. President Lee Myung Bak has pushed to expand trade markets, calling it necessary to widen the resource-scare country’s “economic territory.”