South Koreas exports of food and agricultural products increased significantly in November 2012 on growing shipments to Russia and Asian countries
According to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries sources, the country shipped US$740mn worth of farm products in November 2012, up 7.9 per cent from the same month last year.
The ministry said in a press release, “Exports to Russia and the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) showed large increases.”
Shipments to Russia jumped 30.3 per cent on-year to US$23.5mn last month with exports to the 10 member countries of ASEAN surging 25.3 per cent to US$99.7mn.
Japan continued to be the world’s largest importer of South Korean farm products, purchasing US$227mn worth of goods from South Korea in November. The figure represents a 4.8 per cent increase from the same period in 2011.
Exports to China, on the other hand, dropped 6.7 per cent on-year to US$125.8mn.
By product, shipments of processed foodstuff hiked 11.3 per cent on-year last month with those of fresh foodstuff, such as vegetables, and fisheries products also growing 4.3 per cent and 3.2 per cent, respectively, from a year earlier.
The country's farm exports in the first 11 months of the year came to US$7.29 billion, growing 5.1 per cent from the same period last year but falling far short of the ministry's US$10bn target for the whole of 2012.
The report from the ministry added, “The ministry plans to focus all its efforts on marketing and sales promotion in countries with growing imports from South Korea, such as the ASEAN countries, and further remove any obstacles to exports to help increase exports.”
