PORT HOPE -- While Viceroy Homes Limited has already secured a 20-year history of trade with Japan, CEO Douglas Auer hopes a new free trade agreement with Korea will lead to more partnerships.

Highlighting the benefits of the newly signed Canada-Korea free trade agreement, Mr. Auer said it has the potential to double the company's workforce across Canada.

"We're looking at the possibility of selling a few hundred homes each year in the Korean market," he said, pointing out that the company exported a little more than 100 homes to date. "We hope that will increase dramatically with the signing of this free trade agreement. So far we have come very close to signing small deals but they continually get blocked because of that extra tariff amount."

The agreement was signed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Park Geun-hye of South Korea last week.

In business for more than 55 years, Viceroy Homes designs, engineers and manufactures custom wood frame homes, and in the peak season employs 200 factory and office staff.

In addition to a production facility at its Port Hope headquarters, Viceroy produces homes in Richmond, B.C.

According to Durham MP Erin O'Toole, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of International Trade, companies like Viceroy are stymied by an eight per cent tariff wall that makes it harder for them to compete.

"Companies like Viceroy represent our future since one in five jobs in Canada are directly attributed to trade," he said. "When our trade with the U.S. has slowed we need to build new markets."

During a visit and tour of the Port Hope facility on March 19, Mr. O'Toole said Canada entered into a nine-year journey to reach the free trade agreement, with South Korea already the country's seventh largest trading partner.

"They are the fourth largest economy in Asia and we have strong binds with South Korea," Mr. O'Toole said.

With Canada's main competitors -- the United States, European Union and Australia -- reaching similar agreements with Korea in recent years, he said the playing field is now level for Canadian exporters.

"The day it comes into force, 88 per cent of the tariffs that currently block or give Canadian exporters like Viceroy challenges in that market, will come down immediately," he said. "Almost 95 per cent or more will come down in the four to five years after the agreement has been signed."

The biggest winners as a result of the Canada-Korea free trade agreement, he said, would be Canada's agriculture, manufacturing, and forestry sectors.

"In this area there is already $100 million of exports from Port Hope alone through Cameco, and South Korea has CANDU nuclear generators providing stable and secure greenhouse gas-free power for them," he said.

In the end, Mr. Auer hopes the agreement will allow Viceroy Homes to more than double its workforce in the coming years.

"We're hoping to raise that with a couple more shifts and our goal is to hit 1,000 employees nationally soon," he said, adding that the company now employs 400 across Canada during the peak season. "Free trade agreements like this help us get there quickly."