South Korea: With spring fruit shipments imminent, the government is increasing import

The government has once again taken out the card to expand fruit imports in the name of price stability. If a large number of cheap imported fruits are released into the market from April to June, when spring fruits are shipped in earnest, it is expected that consumption of domestic fruits will inevitably take a hit. The government recently announced at the ‘Price Relations Ministerial Meeting’ that it will add mandarin and durian to the items to which tariff quotas will be applied in the first half of the year. The plan is to expand imports of alternative fruits to distribute demand for items that are in short supply domestically, such as apples and pears. The tariff rate for mandarin (500 tons) will be reduced from 50% to 10%, and for durian (1,300 tons) from 45% to 5%. The government previously announced in January that it would apply tariff quotas to six fresh fruit items worth 218,000 tons in the first half of the year. The 30% tariff rate was removed for five items, ...