Seoul, March 12:

South Korean and US negotiators made progress in their final formal round of free trade talks, but still need to narrow gaps in key sectors like automobiles to meet an end-of-March deadline, Yonhap news agency reported on Monday.

“Groundwork was laid for to strike a deal in time,” Lee Hye-min, South Korea’s deputy chief negotiator, told reporters at the end of the final round, according to Yonhap. “

A deal is in sight.” Lee also said that the two sides would hold supplementary talks in Washington from March 19 to try and make further progress in autos and other issues including US antidumping measures.

Chief negotiator for the two sides planned to hold press conferences later Monday. Negotiators have made more progress in their eighth round than in the previous seven attempts, reaching agreements in competition policy, customs affairs and government procurement and expressing general optimism that a final deal is in sight.

South Korea and US say an agreement would boost economic growth and trade in two countries that already do $72 billion in trade. Opponents like labor, farm and citizens’ groups, say it would harm livelihoods.

If successful, the proposed deal to cut tariffs and other barriers to trade would be the first for the US in Northeast Asia, home to three of the world’s top 10 economies. It would also be the biggest such accord for Washington since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993.

Across town from the hilltop hotel where negotiators met, opponents of the agreement began a hunger strike in a central Seoul park within sight of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and just around the corner from the US Embassy.