April 25, 2011

South Korea aiming to lift duties on chilled pork and chicken meat

The South Korean government aims to expand tariff-free food imports to chilled pork and chicken meat and is considering extending duty-free imports of frozen pork to the year end, a senior finance ministry official said on Friday (Apr 22).

"Policy efforts need to be continued to stabilise prices," Vice Finance Minister, Yim Jong-yong, said at the start of a weekly anti-inflation meeting. "We will examine increasing the term of tariff-free pork imports, which is expiring at the end of June, to year end," he said.

He added that import duties would also likely be lowered or eliminated on chilled pork meats and chicken imports.

In February, South Korea announced a plan to nearly double tariff-free pork imports in the first half of this year and said it might extend the measure to the second half to boost supply and ease inflation.