Friday, July 18th, 2014
SEOUL, KOREA - Minister for Food, Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Lee Dong-phil said on July 17 about the issue of rice market opening by imposing steep tariffs, "Even though the government will announce its intentions to scrap caps on rice imports and instead turn toward charging tariffs very soon, the final level of import duties would be determined by the end of September and notified to the World Trade Organization by then."
The minister said this in a Special Committee on Budget and Accounts meeting and added, "As there will be time before the final decision, my ministry will communicate more with farmers and National Assembly representatives."
To a question whether imposing tariffs on rice imports means entirely opening up the rice market by Congresswoman Kim Mi-hee (Unified Progressive Party), the minister answered, "In exchange for postponing the market opening, the government has imported so much rice under the agreement with the WTO for the past 20 years. But the amount has become too large to absorb by now. We have come to a decision that it is better to turn to a scheme to impose high tariffs to deter imports while nominally opening up the market."
He added, "It is my belief that there is no other way but to impose tariffs and no one raises objection to this. This is the only way to protect Korea's farm sector."
Under the current arrangement with the WTO, Korea must buy 408,700 tons of foreign rice this year, or 9 percent of its demand. The amount that must be purchased abroad has gradually increased from 51,000 tons in 1995. China usually accounts for 50-60 percent of total imports, the United States for 20-30 percent, and Thailand for 10-20 percent. Of the 159 WTO member countries, only Korea and the Philippines have tight controls on rice imports.