South Korea: Strengthen customs quarantine for imported agricultural products

Amid the beginning of early onion harvest, reports of Chinese onion smuggling continued, and farmers are heartbroken. Unbearable, the National Onion Producers Association held a press conference in front of the Daejeon Customs Office on the 22nd and urged thorough management and supervision of imported onions. According to the association, as domestic onion prices have recently been high, onion importers are taking unfair advantage by loading onion in excess of the customs declaration volume and importing it into Korea without paying a 135% tariff. Last year, the government implemented a tariff reduction quota (TRQ) system that lowered tariffs from 135% to 10% for price stability. Farmers claim that private importers are randomly importing onions from China's Yunnan Province even after TRQ onion imports have been suspended, and in the process, they are making unfair profits by deceiving the weight and reporting low prices. The association has sent an official letter to the Korea ...