The UK finalized a long-awaited free trade agreement with South Korea that the government said would boost exporters from automaker Bentley to beverages firm Diageo.

Trade Minister Chris Bryant sealed the deal in London on Monday with his Korean counterpart, Yeo Han-koo, the UK Department for Business and Trade said in an emailed statement. It comes just weeks before a low- and zero-tariff agreement between the two countries, carried over from Britain’s membership of the EU, was due to expire.

South Korea’s Yeo said the agreement offered both market-liberalization measures and cooperation on supply chains and digital trade that would help the two nations respond to changes in the global trade environment.

The UK trade department said the deal — the fourth struck by the Labour government — would grow UK services exports by £400 million ($536 million) as firms gain improved access to South Korea’s financial market, while also easing the export of Bentley’s luxury cars, Diageo’s Guinness, and salmon from Scotland.

“This deal making trade even easier between us will help boost the economy - supporting jobs and growth which will be felt all over the country,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in the statement. “This is a huge win for British business.”

The deal is a small boost for Starmer, who has so far struggled in his quest to generate economic growth in the UK, despite other agreements with India, the US and European Union. The UK is at risk of its first quarterly contraction since Labour returned to power in July 2024, after official data last week showed growth fell in October, the second monthly contraction in a row.

The deal “will help reinforce the rules of the free market and deepen economic cooperation with the UK, a key partner in Europe at a time when the expansion of protectionism is heightening uncertainty in global trade,” Trade Minister Yeo said in a statement.

For the UK, signing trade deals with countries outside the EU was touted by proponents as one of the key benefits of Brexit, but few have yet been completed and none have provided the value offered by rejoining the single market or customs union. Starmer will continue negotiations on a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU next year, to reduce the burden of trading agricultural products.

A free trade agreement between the UK and the six countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — is also near to completion, according to multiple people with knowledge of the matter.

Monday’s deal will secure tariff-free access to South Korea across 98 percent of tariff lines — the same terms that the EU has with the Asian nation, the department said. It will also update so-called rules of origin, which dictate how “British” a product must be to qualify for reduced tariffs.

For cars, for example, 55 percent of the product’s value would previously have had to come from the UK. That’s now been reduced to 25 percent, giving UK manufacturers more flexibility to source materials and components from abroad.

The trade department said the deal would also allow the use of e-contracts and other digital technology to make it quicker and cheaper for UK firms to sell to Korea.