Today's Date:     Wednesday, January 18, 2012

1. BILATERAL/MULTILATERAL ISSUES

DUP pledges full repeal of KORUS FTA [English: BYK]

http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20120117001078

Summary: The newly elected Supreme Council of the main opposition Democratic United Party pledged to fully repeal the disputed Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.  The announcement raised concerns that ties between the two countries could take a step back should the liberal camp take power in this year’s elections.  “All council members agree that the KORUS FTA was lopsided and flawed,” said Han Myeong-sook, after being elected party head on Sunday.  “We shall abolish the entire pact and restart the talks from scratch.”

<1/13/2012>FTA with China finally gains traction [English, CSY]

http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=2947036

Vulnerable industries

Summary: The government has been cautiously dragging its feet on the FTA with China due to an expected backlash from the agricultural industry. Geographical proximity is one of the advantages for doing trade with China, but it also means that fresh food products and produce can be imported from China, not only frozen items, and compete with local products.  It seems that major branches of the government started changing their views on the FTA around last July.  Minister of Strategy and Finance Bahk Jae-wan has led the change, saying “It’s time to have a clear stance on our side.” Following Bahk, Suh Kyu-yong, minister for food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, said, “It is part of the current trend to push for an FTA with China.”

Cho Chang-sang, director of trade policy at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, said, “The faster a Korea-China FTA takes effect, the better it is for Korea.” According to Cho, China has shifted its focus on becoming a highly industrialized country, which means that the economic and industrial gap between Korea and China will narrow rapidly. “The more time passes by, the less benefit Korea gets,” he said.  According to a high-ranking official, the Chinese government strongly wanted to start negotiating before the change of power in Korea in early 2013, so Seoul couldn’t delay any longer. In fact, the government unofficially had a plan to start FTA negotiations with China late last year but failed to do so because of the prolonged wrangling over ratification of the FTA with the United States and negative public opinion about the agreement.

2. GRAIN & OILSEED ISSUES

Statistics Korea omits grain from N.Korean figures [English, CSY]

Concerns about deteriorating relations, public opinion on food aid

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/515250.html

Summary: “With inter-Korean relations so tense, it is no longer possible for us to do the kind of North Korean grain production estimates that were possible under the previous administration,” a government official explained on Tuesday.  2010 production figures for rice, corn, barley, beans, and other major grains were left blank in a Statistics Korea report on major statistical indicators in North Korea. The numbers were included in statistical data released in 2008, 2009, and other years.   A Statistics Korea official said, “We made several requests to the organization in charge, but they didn’t provide materials, so we couldn’t print them.” The Rural Development Administration is responsible for investigating North Korean grain production. Early every year, it has estimated and released North Korean grain production figures for the previous year. Since 2011, however, it has failed to release figures.

3. LIVESTOCK ISSUES

Resumption of Canadian beef imports imminent [Korean: BYK]

http://www.nongmin.com/article/ar_detail.htm?ar_id=197860&subMenu=articletotal

Summary: According to a MIFAFF official on January 16^th, MIFAFF has held a meeting at the Prime Minister’s office and have decided to publish the Canadian Beef Protocol.  Once this is published, then both countries need to discuss the health certificates and approve the establishments eligible to export to Korea.

Forty percent of beef price is marketing cost [Korean: BYK]

http://www.sjbnews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=391354

Summary: According to a report put out by the National Assembly, over 40% of the beef price came from marketing costs.  Therefore, if we can cut the marketing stage, it will allow for retail beef prices to come down.

Germany becomes third largest pork exporter to Korea [Korean: BYK]

http://www.nongmin.com/article/ar_detail.htm?ar_id=197862&subMenu=articletotal

Summary: Germany is pumping up efforts to increase its market share of pork in Korea.  It has become the third largest supplier of pork to Korea, following the United States (39%) and Canada (13%).

4. OTHER MISCELLANEOUS ISSUES

Kyunggi-do Invests KRW 500 million (=$500,000) to develop agricultural industry. [Korean, LSH]

http://www.hankyung.com/news/app/newsview.php?aid=201201175690i&intype=1

Summary: Kyunggi-do has announced “2012 Agriculture Administration.” In order to boost the agricultural industry in the province, kyunggi-do stated six ways. The 2012 announcement includes preparing countermeasures for both the Korea-U.S. FTA and the Korea-E.U. FTA, educating the professional farmers, developing the infra structure and etc.

Kyunggi-do is also planning to build an organic food distribution center to expand the school cafeteria food supply and to support the food exports to the global markets.

5. MIFAFF PRESS RELEASES

► QIA to strengthen quarantine inspection to protect domestic ecology system

► MIFAFF to enhance efforts to export dried anchovies

► MIFAFF to push for early release of TRQ for fishery products under Korea-ASEAN FTA: MIFAFF plans to move up the public auction of TRQ for shrimps and squids under the Korea-ASEAN FTA to control inflation.  The TRQ under Korea-ASEAN FTA is 7,300 MT for shrimp and 2,000 MT for cuttlefish.  In 2011, a total of 7,152 MT of shrimp was imported under the TRQ established for the Korea-ASEAN FTA and the total amount of public auction fee collected was 12.5 billion won ($10.9 million).  The reason why there weren’t any imports of squid was because the type of cuttlefish that was being imported from ASEAN was not the specific type of cuttlefish agreed upon during the FTA talks, based on Korea Customs’ DNA test.  Korea will hold talks with ASEAN this February to allow the type of cuttlefish being cut in ASEAN to become eligible for the TRQ.

► Chinese cabbage production to drop after May, due to decreased production of spring cabbage.

► MIFAFF to develop 10 essential technologies in the fishery business

► MIFAFF to provide a support up to 1 billion won (about $874,000) to small-to-mid-sized companies that have superior technology in the agricultural and fishery business