South Korea: Decrease in tariffs on bait saury, giving Jeju’s cutlassfish industry a breather

Attention is being paid to whether the Jeju cutlassfish industry, which had been experiencing difficulties in fishing, will be able to regain its vitality as the burden of tariffs on bait saury is eased. According to the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries on the 15th, the cutlassfish industry in the province has mainly used imported saury because there is no bait to replace saury when fishing. The cutlassfish industry pays an adjusted tariff of 24% in accordance with the 1998 ‘Tariff Act’ to bring in imported saury as bait. Since then, as import prices have increased and resources have decreased, it has become increasingly difficult to supply bait, and the cutlassfish industry has been proposing to the government for over 10 years to reduce the adjusted tariff imposed on imported saury to ease management burden. However, the domestic deep-sea saury industry continued to maintain a negative stance on the cutlassfish industry's demands for ...