South Korea’s import of American cars has more than tripled since the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement(FTA) went into effect in 2012.

According local industry sources on Monday, South Korea imported 49-thousand-96 cars from the U.S. last year, three-point-six times more than the 13-thousand-669 units tallied in 2011.

In terms of the combined values of the imported U.S. cars, imports jumped three-point-four times from 363-million dollars to one-billion-242-million dollars between 2011 and last year.

During the same period, the number of cars imported from all over the world logged a moderate growth of two-point-three times from 105-thousand to 244-thousand.

The local car industry watchers attribute the marked growth of imported U.S. cars to tariff reduction measures under the South Korea-U.S. FTA. The tariff on imported cars dropped from eight percent to four percent when the FTA took effect in March of 2012.

Industry watchers expect the fast growth of U.S. car imports to continue due the tariffs on imported U.S. cars being fully lifted earlier this year.