Peru president says near trade deal with South Korea

SEOUL, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Resource-rich Peru is close to sealing a free trade agreement with South Korea that will expand their $1.6 billion a year bilateral trade, Peru's President Alan Garcia said on Thursday.

Garcia was expected to reach a deal when he was in South Korea for a summit with President Lee Myung-bak ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Singapore, but the talks appear to have hit a few snags.

"All the presidents do is talk. The actual FTA will have to be decided by technicians after much research," Garcia told reporters in Seoul.

"There soon will be a good result," he said, but did not give any details on the time frame for an agreement or what was holding up negotiations.

In recent years, resource-poor South Korea has sought free trade agreements and deals to secure commodities.

Peru, whose main exports include copper, gold, zinc and petroleum, aims to have free trade deals covering 90 percent of its trade in place by mid 2011, officials said.

Garcia said the deal would benefit South Korean energy companies such as Korea National Oil Corp and SK Energy (096770.KS), which already have projects in Peru. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Christine Kim; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)