Foreign Rice Targets Korean Dining Table

Starting next year, foreign rice brands such as the American brands Calos and Gokuhoros, and the Chinese brand Jilin Dongbuk, will be displayed in local discount stores and supermarkets along with domestic rice.

As a result, local farmers’ group demonstrations against the government’s policy of opening the rice market to foreign countries are expected to be fiercer.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) on November 10, some foreign rice, which is duly imported to the nation, will be sold in shops and markets regardless of the result of ongoing rice talks.

The government has compulsorily imported a certain amount of foreign rice since 1995 instead of delaying tariffs on rice based on the deal made at the Uruguay Round of trade talks.

However, the government has used them to make rice snacks or rice noodles for fear of farmer’s complaints, and not sold it as rice for meals to normal consumers and restaurants.

Such decision, as lawyers pointed out, was against the Article 3 of GATT agreement; ‘The principle of treatment as domestic people’.

‘The principle of treatment as domestic people’ is the core article of World Trade Organization (WTO), which explains that imported rice should be also sold to regular consumers just like domestic rice. For this reason, WTO had raised this issue several times before the rice talks.

During the regular inspection of government offices conducted by the National Assembly early last month, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said, “The counterparts of our negotiation are strongly urging to sell their rice to the consumers.” They also announced that the sales of product will be the main factor for extending the amount of obligatory rice imports and extending the postponement of tariffication.”

The majority of experts are concerned that Korea will not remain favorable in the negotiation if the government keeps refusing to sell foreign rice to the consumers.

In the past, Korea has once lost a suit at WTO for having neglected the principle by dividing the stores between imported beef and local beef.

Chung Young-jin, an attorney specializing in international trade in the law firm “Kwangjang,” said, “Tariffication is the current trend in international trade, and foreign countries will make full use of it to promote their rice brands.”

Ji-Wan Cha cha@donga.com