South Korea: Overseas functional registration of ginseng, government support is desperately needed

As the production base of ginseng is shaken due to increased inventory and operating costs and sluggish consumption, officials are arguing that the government should take an active role in promoting ginseng consumption. In addition, as a way to increase ginseng exports, they are appealing for the urgent need to expand the government's budget support so that functional food can be registered in major exporting countries. According to the Korea Ginseng Association, to register ginseng overseas as a functional food, it usually costs about 1 million euros (1.34 billion won), including the extraction of standard substances, experiments and registration costs. In other words, it is argued that it takes a huge amount of money to register all eight major functional ingredients of ginseng recognized in Korea. An official from the association said, “It is impossible for producer groups or general companies to promote the eight ingredients because it takes a huge amount of money ...