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With Chinese-made kimchi pouring into the country, Korea, the home of kimchi, has become a major kimchi-importing country whose imports exceeded its exports. As the price of Korean cabbage has sharply risen due to cabbage crop failure, low-priced Chinese kimchi is aggressively making its way into the Korean kimchi market.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and Korea Customs Service (KCS) on Tuesday, imports of Chinese kimchi products during this August recorded 8247 tons, 4.8 times as many as that of last August (1714 tons). This brought a total of kimchi imports between January and August this year to 35,976 tons, already exceeding last year¡¯s imports of 28,707 tons.
The remarkable rise in kimchi imports is attributable to a sharp increase in the price of domestic cabbage resulting from crop failure. The domestic cabbage price once soared to W7 million per five tons in August due to decrease in yields, causing a ¡°cabbage shock.¡± The average price of cabbage between January and July was W1.3 to 1.5 million per five tons.
Currently, kimchi, an import-free item, can be imported without limit by paying 30 percent tariffs. Most of the kimchi products imported from China are made by Korean kimchi makers, who moved their facilities to China to reduce the production cost and are selling their products back to Korea. An MAF official said, ¡°Since late last year, small-sized importing companies have sprang up, so now it is difficult to estimate the number of companies.¡± The unit cost of Chinese kimchi is around W500 per kg, only a tenth of that of domestic kimchi.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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